Job responsibilities
Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice is part of an exciting
programme of transformation to develop a new model of care which addresses our
ambition to deliver person-centred, coordinated care across the district. The
Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice model is supported by the direction of
national policy including the Five Year Forward View and GP Forward View where
there is a need to better utilise the role of pharmacy within primary care to
pro-actively help patients stay safe and well and out of hospital as well as
helping to reduce the demands on general practice.
Pharmacy technicians play an important role, complementing
clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists and other members of the PCN multi- disciplinary team. Pharmacy technicians are different
to clinical pharmacists as they are not able to prescribe or make clinical
decisions, instead working under supervision to ensure effective and efficient
use of medicines.
Pharmacy technicians core role responsibilities will cover
clinical, and technical and administrative categories.
The purpose of the role is to lead improvements to maximise
safe, cost effective best practice in prescribing to improve the quality of
patient care. The post holder will help patients to get the best from their
medicines by switching medications to agreed and approved protocols, improving
repeat prescribing processes in General Practice, including promotion of repeat
dispensing and online ordering, minimising clinical risk and aiming to reduce
wasted medicines.
In addition, the post holder will be responsible for
encouraging the development of better understanding of the principles of
medicines optimisation throughout the practice teams and promoting good
practice in line with therapeutic developments. This will involve assisting the
PCN in achieving national requirements, NICE implementation and utilisation of
medicines optimisation initiatives.
Key duties and responsibilities
Clinical
- Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to
ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations
with patients.
- Carry out medicines optimisation tasks including effective
medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting
medication reviews and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise
consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use
their medicines effectively.
- As determined by the PCN, support medication reviews and
medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines
for patient transfers between care settings, linking with local community
pharmacies.
- Support the Clinical Pharmacist in Structured Medication
Reviews (SMR) i.e. organise necessary monitoring tests prior to SMR.
- Provide expertise to address both the public health and
social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information,
and help in tackling local health inequalities.
- Manage shared care protocols and liaise with Clinical
Pharmacists for more complex patients.
- Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to
reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing locally.
- Technical and Administrative
- Support the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure
efficient medicines optimisation processes are being followed.
- Implement efficient ordering and return processes and
reducing medication wastage.
- Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure
handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic
Prescription Service (EPS).
- Promotion of Electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) and online
ordering.
- Develop relationships with other pharmacy professionals
and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration across health
and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and
mental health.
- Support practice reception teams in streaming general
prescription requests, so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review
the more clinically complex requests.
- Support the implementation of national prescribing
policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care
settings.
- Support the PCN to deliver on QIPP agenda, QOF and locally
commissioned enhanced services.
- Supporting quality improvement measures and contributing
to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services.
- Support the PCN in reviewing and developing practice
policies for CQC requirements.
General
The postholder will:
- Develop a culture that promotes equality and values
diversity. The postholder must be aware of and committed to the Equality and
Diversity policies of the appointing GP Federation and comply with all the
requirements of these policies and actively promote Equality and Diversity
issues relevant to the post.
- Ensure the principles of openness, transparency and candor
are observed and upheld in all working practices.
- The post holder will have, or acquire through training
provided by the organisation, the appropriate level of safeguarding and
knowledge, skills and practice required for the post and be aware of and comply
with the organisations safeguarding protection policies and procedures.
- Ensure that any infection prevention and control issues
are reported to the line manager/Infection Prevention and Control.
Equality and diversity:
The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and
rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:
- Acting in a way that recognises the importance of peoples
rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with practice procedures
and policies, and current legislation.
- Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of
patients, carers and colleagues.
- Behaving in a manner which is welcoming to and of the
individual, is non- judgmental and respects their circumstances, feelings
priorities and rights.
Personal/Professional development:
The post-holder will participate in any training programme
implemented by the practice as part of this employment, with such training to
include:
- Participation in an annual individual performance review,
including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or
professional development.
- Taking responsibility for own development, learning and
performance and demonstrating skills and activities to others who are
undertaking similar work.
Quality:
The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the
practice, and will:
- Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk.
- Assess own performance and take accountability for own
actions, either directly or under supervision.
- Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting
on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and
enhance the teams performance.
- Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to
meet patients needs.
- Effectively manage own time, workload and resources.
Supervision
The postholder will have access to appropriate clinical
supervision and an appropriate named individual in the PCN to provide general
advice and support on a day to day basis.
