Job responsibilities
Key duties and
responsibilities
Patient facing
Long-term condition Clinics
See (where appropriate)
patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation
is required (e.g. Respiratory, Cardiovascular and Diabetes). Review the
on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an
opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get
the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation). Make appropriate
recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.
Patient facing
Clinical Medication Review
Undertake
clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for
senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
Patient facing
Care Home Medication Reviews
Undertake
clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the
senior clinical pharmacist, nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Work
with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and
administration.
Patient facing
Domiciliary Clinical Medication Reviews
Undertake
clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the
senior clinical pharmacists, nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring.
Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
Risk
stratification
Identification
of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared
practice computer searches. This might include risks that are patient related,
medicine related, or both.
Unplanned
hospital admissions
Review
the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital
admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews. Put
in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk
patient groups.
Patient facing
medicines support
Provide
patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about
their medicines in the practice.
Management of
medicines at discharge from hospital
To
ensure practices are safely and effectively reconciling medicines following
discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into Care Homes, including
identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and
community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post
discharge. Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply
to high-risk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or
those in Care Homes).
Medicine
information to practice staff and patients
Answer
relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other network staff, other
healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about
medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow-up for
patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
Signposting
Ensure
that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the
appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology
results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews
etc.
Repeat
prescribing
Work
with the senior pharmacists to produce and implement a repeat prescribing
policy within each PCN practice. Ensure the repeat prescribing reauthorisation
process within practices is safe and effective, where staff are reviewing medicines
reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review. Ensure patients
have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
Service
development
Contribute
pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that
have medicinal components (e.g. advice on treatment pathways and patient
information leaflets).
Information
management
Analyse,
interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support
decision making.
Medicines
quality improvement
Undertake
clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the
results and implement changes in conjunction with the relevant practice team.
Medicines
safety
Implement
changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other
local and national guidance.
Implementation
of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations
Monitor
practice prescribing against the local health economys formulary list and make
recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital
doctors or subject to shared care. Auditing practices compliance against NICE
technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters or bulletins on important
prescribing messages.
Education and
Training
Provide
education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines
optimisation.
Care Quality
Commission
Work
with the general practice teams to ensure the practices are compliant with CQC
standards where medicines are involved.
Public health
To
support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public
health programmes available to the general public.
Collaborative
working arrangements
Participates
in PCN MDTs. Liaises with colleagues including CCG/STP/ICS Pharmacists/Pharmacy
Technicians and Heads of Medicines Management/Optimisation to benefit from peer
support. Foster and maintain strong links with all services across the PCN and
neighbouring networks. Explores the potential for collaborative working and
takes opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships. Liaises with
other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients, including
but not limited to:
1. Patients and their representatives
2. GP, nurses and other practice staff
3. Social prescribers, first contact physiotherapists,
physicians associates and paramedics.
4. Community pharmacists and support staff
5. Other members of the medicines management (MM) team
including pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Dieticians
6. Locality / GP prescribing lead
7. Locality managers
8. Community nurses and other allied health professionals
9. Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and
medicines optimisation
Professional
development
Work
with your line manager to undertake continual personal and professional
development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the role and
responsibilities.
Adhere
to organisational policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding,
lone working, information governance, and health and safety.
Work
with your line manager to access regular clinical supervision, to enable you
to deal effectively with the difficult issues that people present.
Review yearly progress and develop clear plans
to achieve results within priorities set by others.
Participate
in the delivery of formal education programmes.
Demonstrate
an understanding of current educational policies relevant to working areas of
practice and keep up to date with relevant clinical practice.
Research and
Evaluation
Critically evaluate and review literature.
Identify where there is a gap in the evidence base to
support practice.
Generate evidence suitable for presentations at practice
and local level.
Apply research evidence base into the workplace.
Miscellaneous
Work as part of the team to seek feedback, continually
improve the service and contribute to business planning.
Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post
and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and
effective manner.
Duties may vary from time to time, without changing the
general character of the post or the level of responsibility.
