Job summary
PHARMACY DEPARTMENT
Head of Education and Training - Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff
Band 8A (37.5 hours per week)
Are you a forward-thinking, self-motivated Pharmacy Technician with a passion for workforce development and education? Do you have a desire to pave the way for Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacy Support Staff? Here at University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG) we are excited to offer an opportunity for a dynamic and experienced individual to join us as our Head of Education and Training - Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff.
UHLG operates from four hospital sites: Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool Women's Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, alongside a host of community services. As a major healthcare provider, we offer general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services that extend to more than two million people across the North West.
We are welcoming applications from individuals with the passion and drive to share our vision and values to support our organisational reputation for excellence and innovation.
Main duties of the job
In this senior leadership role, you will work closely with the Lead Pharmacist - Education and Training to co-design and deliver a Trust-wide pharmacy education and training strategy. With a specific focus on pharmacy technicians and support staff, you will shape the future of the workforce across all UHLG hospital sites.
Demonstrating strong strategic and operational leadership skills role, you will ensure that our pharmacy technical staff are supported, developed, and future-ready, through structured development pathways, responsive training programmes, and close partnership with national bodies and education providers.
About us
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust comprises Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital & Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
We are part of NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, formed on 1 Nov 2024 from the coming together of LUHFT and Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust. The Group was born from a shared aim to improve the care we provide our patients.
UHLG is one of the largest employers in the region, with over 16,800 colleagues dedicated to caring for our communities - from birth and beyond.
For the 630,000 people across Merseyside, we are their local NHS. We provide general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services for more than two million people in the North West.
Aintree University Hospital is the single receiving site for adult major trauma patients in Cheshire and Merseyside and hosts a number of regional services including an award-winning stroke facility. Broadgreen Hospital is home to elective surgical, diagnostic and treatment services, together with specialist patient rehabilitation. Liverpool Women's Hospital specialises in the health of women and babies, delivering over 7,200 babies in the UK's largest single site maternity hospital each year. The Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in the country to provide inpatients with 100% single bedrooms and focuses on complex planned care and specialist services.
For roles at Liverpool Women's, visit their careers page.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Develop and implement a Group-wide pharmacy education strategy for pharmacy technicians and support staff (excluding aseptic and radiopharmacy).
Identify training needs and design targeted development programmes aligned to service and regulatory requirements.
Lead on PTPT (Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technician) recruitment, training, and development.
Provide line management for Pharmacy Education and Training Technicians, including appraisals and competency assessments.
Serve as UHLGs key representative with the ICB, NHSE, and education providers for pharmacy technical education.
Maximise workforce development opportunities via the apprenticeship levy and other funding streams.
Champion practice-based research and contribute to the evidence base through publication and dissemination.
Oversee the creation of training materials and resources, ensuring accessibility and effectiveness for a diverse workforce
Actively promote the role and professional development of pharmacy technicians and support staff.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Develop and implement a Group-wide pharmacy education strategy for pharmacy technicians and support staff (excluding aseptic and radiopharmacy).
Identify training needs and design targeted development programmes aligned to service and regulatory requirements.
Lead on PTPT (Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technician) recruitment, training, and development.
Provide line management for Pharmacy Education and Training Technicians, including appraisals and competency assessments.
Serve as UHLGs key representative with the ICB, NHSE, and education providers for pharmacy technical education.
Maximise workforce development opportunities via the apprenticeship levy and other funding streams.
Champion practice-based research and contribute to the evidence base through publication and dissemination.
Oversee the creation of training materials and resources, ensuring accessibility and effectiveness for a diverse workforce
Actively promote the role and professional development of pharmacy technicians and support staff.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters degree (L7 degree) or equivalent indepth/extensive experience in leading technical services
- NVQ Level 3 / BTEC in Pharmacy Services or equivalent nationally recognised qualification
- Accredited accuracy checking qualification/certification
- A1 NVQ Assessor qualification
- Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council as a Pharmacy Technician
Desirable
- Postgraduate management qualification or equivalent experience
- Teaching qualification
Experience
Essential
- Currently employed in a senior role as a Pharmacy Technician leading pharmacy staff
- In-depth experience of hospital pharmacy operational management across a range of areas
- Significant experience of providing education and training including preparing and delivering presentations, training packs and other training materials
- Management experience including recruitment, appraisal, training, leadership, motivation, sickness absence and participation in grievance or disciplinary procedures
- Experience of change management and/or project work that influenced change
- Regular liaison with other senior hospital staff and external agencies
- Experience of multidisciplinary working to deliver Trust initiatives or resolving issues
Desirable
- Management of pay and/or non-pay budgets
- Experience of developing funding requests and monitoring outputs
- Experience in risk management and incident investigation
Knowledge and skills
Essential
- Demonstrate an understanding of current pharmacy and NHS issues relating to technical and support staff roles and how E I July 2025 they operate in secondary care
- Awareness of national strategy for development of technical pharmacy roles
- Training methods to support effective training provision
- Coaching and development techniques
- Ability to interpret and apply professional standards and medicines legislation as it applies to all areas of pharmacy practice and its application to policies & procedures
- Awareness of and a commitment to the Clinical Governance Agenda
- Knowledge of a range of management topics including, performance capability, disciplinary and financial management, service improvement.
- Have a good understanding of the funding streams available to support continuing education and development
- Proactively provide suggestions, ideas, and solutions for service improvement
- Excellent planning, organisation and time management skills, with the ability to prioritise own workload and that of others
- Ability to act on own initiative, under pressure and making long term plans with minimal supervision.
- Ability to network and bring innovation that impacts across other services.
- Ability to write clear concise reports
- Confidence to present cases to a large group of staff whilst maintaining a clear message
- Strong interpersonal communication skills - written
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills - oral
- Excellent presentation skills
- Skilled negotiator with influencing skills
- Ability to engage and motivate staff to deliver on service objectives and work well as a team
- Ability to delegate appropriately maintaining team motivation and clarity of purpose to deliver objectives
- Resilient: ability to remain calm in difficult and challenging situations
- Ability to handle conflict and complaints/concerns
- High degree of computer literacy including database searching and manipulation of spreadsheets
Personal attributes
Essential
- Accurate and methodical - good attention to detail
- Enthusiasm for the role
- Ability to inspire the team and sell the vision for service delivery
- Resilient: able to cope and remain calm in difficult situations, competing demands and tight timescales
- Flexible, adaptable
Desirable
- Persuasive and ability to negotiate.
Other
Essential
- Occupational Health Clearance
- Participation in evening, weekend and bank holiday working to meet the needs of departmental service delivery
- Ability to travel across sites
- Significant, relevant and ongoing personal CPD maintain fitness to practice
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters degree (L7 degree) or equivalent indepth/extensive experience in leading technical services
- NVQ Level 3 / BTEC in Pharmacy Services or equivalent nationally recognised qualification
- Accredited accuracy checking qualification/certification
- A1 NVQ Assessor qualification
- Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council as a Pharmacy Technician
Desirable
- Postgraduate management qualification or equivalent experience
- Teaching qualification
Experience
Essential
- Currently employed in a senior role as a Pharmacy Technician leading pharmacy staff
- In-depth experience of hospital pharmacy operational management across a range of areas
- Significant experience of providing education and training including preparing and delivering presentations, training packs and other training materials
- Management experience including recruitment, appraisal, training, leadership, motivation, sickness absence and participation in grievance or disciplinary procedures
- Experience of change management and/or project work that influenced change
- Regular liaison with other senior hospital staff and external agencies
- Experience of multidisciplinary working to deliver Trust initiatives or resolving issues
Desirable
- Management of pay and/or non-pay budgets
- Experience of developing funding requests and monitoring outputs
- Experience in risk management and incident investigation
Knowledge and skills
Essential
- Demonstrate an understanding of current pharmacy and NHS issues relating to technical and support staff roles and how E I July 2025 they operate in secondary care
- Awareness of national strategy for development of technical pharmacy roles
- Training methods to support effective training provision
- Coaching and development techniques
- Ability to interpret and apply professional standards and medicines legislation as it applies to all areas of pharmacy practice and its application to policies & procedures
- Awareness of and a commitment to the Clinical Governance Agenda
- Knowledge of a range of management topics including, performance capability, disciplinary and financial management, service improvement.
- Have a good understanding of the funding streams available to support continuing education and development
- Proactively provide suggestions, ideas, and solutions for service improvement
- Excellent planning, organisation and time management skills, with the ability to prioritise own workload and that of others
- Ability to act on own initiative, under pressure and making long term plans with minimal supervision.
- Ability to network and bring innovation that impacts across other services.
- Ability to write clear concise reports
- Confidence to present cases to a large group of staff whilst maintaining a clear message
- Strong interpersonal communication skills - written
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills - oral
- Excellent presentation skills
- Skilled negotiator with influencing skills
- Ability to engage and motivate staff to deliver on service objectives and work well as a team
- Ability to delegate appropriately maintaining team motivation and clarity of purpose to deliver objectives
- Resilient: ability to remain calm in difficult and challenging situations
- Ability to handle conflict and complaints/concerns
- High degree of computer literacy including database searching and manipulation of spreadsheets
Personal attributes
Essential
- Accurate and methodical - good attention to detail
- Enthusiasm for the role
- Ability to inspire the team and sell the vision for service delivery
- Resilient: able to cope and remain calm in difficult situations, competing demands and tight timescales
- Flexible, adaptable
Desirable
- Persuasive and ability to negotiate.
Other
Essential
- Occupational Health Clearance
- Participation in evening, weekend and bank holiday working to meet the needs of departmental service delivery
- Ability to travel across sites
- Significant, relevant and ongoing personal CPD maintain fitness to practice
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details
Employer name
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Aintree University Hospital
Pharmacy Department, Aintree University Hospital, Longmoor Lane
Liverpool
L9 7AL
Employer's website
https://www.liverpoolft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)
