Job responsibilities
Role: Primary Care Network Clinical Pharmacist
Location: GP Practices in Central Islington
Responsible to: Practice Managers/ Partners as appropriate
Accountable to: Head of Clinical Pharmacy
Salary: £47,154 - £52,936 (based on relevant experience)
Annual Leave: 25 days + Bank holidays
Weekly hours: 37.5 hours
Training provided: CPPE Primary Care Pharmacy education pathway incl. Independent Prescribing
Interviews to be conducted on a rolling-basis.
Islington GP Federation is looking to recruit clinical pharmacists to support patient care in Primary Care Networks in line with the new Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) Specification.
We are seeking a PCN pharmacist with previous experience of working in primary care to develop and manage Medicines Optimisation services within general practice. You will be working with a very supportive large pharmacy team of 40 pharmacists and 5 Pharmacy Technicians. The post holder will work as part of a multi- disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. They will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within practices and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy.
The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with regards to prescriptions and medication queries. They will help support the repeat prescribing system, medicines reconciliation, and support systems for safer prescribing. They will be expected to provide expertise in clinical medicines advice while addressing both public and social care needs of patients.
The post holder will provide clinical leadership on Medicines Optimisation and manage some aspects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework and Enhanced Services. They will ensure that practices integrate with community and hospital pharmacy to facilitate effective communication across different healthcare settings.
The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within general practice.
The post holder will be supported to complete the Primary care pharmacy education pathway with CPPE and develop their role to become a non-medical prescriber.
In view of the dynamic nature of the role, this job profile is intended to provide an outline of the duties and responsibilities; it will be subject to review and amendment as necessary in consultation with the post holder
Job Responsibilities
Patient facing:
Structured Medication reviews
- Frail elderly patient with problematic Polypharmacy, renal and/ or hepatic impairment
- Patients on high risk medicines
- STOPP/START identified patients
- Revolving door Hospital admissions
- LTC: Diabetes, Hypertension, Asthma, COPD
- Contraception
- Learning Disability reviews
- Rheumatoid arthritis reviews
- Musculoskeletal pain management, e.g. osteoarthritis
- Ongoing care of defined conditions, e.g. eczema, psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- Contribute to multimorbidity reviews and multidisciplinary reviews
Management of common/minor/self- limiting ailments
- Managing caseload for patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.
- Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate
Repeat prescribing
- Produce and implement robust systems for repeat prescribing
- Support the management of repeat prescribing reauthorization process by reviewing complex patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines overdue a review
- Coordinate with patients and community pharmacies as appropriate
Management of medicines at discharge from hospital
- To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes
- Perform a clinical medication review, produce a post discharge medicines care plan including dose titration and booking of follow up tests and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge
Risk Management and Patient Safety
- Responsible for high risk drug monitoring
- Responsible for design, development, and implementation of system searches to identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines.
- Increase quality and safety of prescribing through mechanisms such as audit and PDSA cycles
- Implement drug withdrawals and alerts e.g. MHRA aimed at improving medicines safety
Medicine information to practice sta and patients
Deal will all medication queries from:
- Patients, community pharmacy, secondary care
- Admin staff
- Clinicians
Act as a source of medicines information for the practice team and patients (e.g. around doses, side effects, adverse events, possible alternatives for out of stocks)
Care Quality Commission
- Provide leadership to the general practice teams to
ensure practices are compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
- Undertake risk assessment and management and ensure compliance with medicines legislation.
Public health
- To contribute to public health campaigns, including u vaccinations, and adult immunisation programmes
Cost saving programs
- Promote evidence based, cost effective prescribing
- Lead on compliance with medicines formulary
Training
- Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on procedures around medicines as appropriate
Medicines quality improvement
- Identify medicine-related areas of care (including using software tools) to improve patient safety and use of medicines.
- Conduct medicine-related audits, significant event audit and complaint review.
- Contribute to medicine-related complaint response letters as appropriate
- Lead on use of TARGET toolkit for antimicrobial stewardship.
- Lead on stopping over-medication of people with a learning disability, autism, or both (STOMP) and people with dementia.
Medicines safety
- Identify national and local policy and guidance that affects patient safety using medicines, including MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and emerging evidence form clinical trials.
- Manage the process of implementing changes to medicines and guidance for practitioners.
Behavioural Competencies and skills for the role:
Expert Professional Practice:
- Demonstrates general pharmaceutical skills and knowledge in core areas
- Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision as an individual
- Demonstrates ability to use skills in a range of routine situations requiring analysis or comparison of a range of options
- Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and can refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
- Can follow legal, ethical, professional, and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct
- Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidance
Collaborative working relationships
- Recognises the roles of other colleagues within the organisation and their role to patient care
- Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS/private organisations e.g. CCGs)
- Demonstrates ability to work as a member of a team
- Can recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary
- Liaises with CCG colleagues including CCG Pharmacists on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit
- Liaises with other GP Practices and staff as needed for the collective benefit of patients
Leadership
- Demonstrates understanding of the pharmacy role in governance and can implement this appropriately within the workplace
- Demonstrates understanding of, and contributes to, the workplace vision
- Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service
- Reviews last years progress and develops clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others
- Demonstrates ability to motivate self to achieve goals
Management
- Demonstrates understanding of the implications of national priorities for the team and/or service
- Demonstrates understanding of the process for effective resource utilisation
- Demonstrates understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice
- Demonstrates ability to identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol
- Follows professional and organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management
- Demonstrates ability to extend boundaries of service delivery within the team
Education, Training and Development
- Understands and demonstrates the characteristics of a role model to members in the team and/or service
- Demonstrates self-development through continuous professional development activity
- Participates in the delivery of formal education programmes
Key working relationships
- Patients
- GP, nurses, and other practice staff
- Members of the Medicines Management team including pharmacists, technicians, and dieticians
- Locality / GP prescribing leads and clinical directors
- Community nurses and other allied health professionals
- Community pharmacists and support staff
- Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimization
