Clinical Pharmacist - Aintree PCN

Job responsibilities

Patient facing Clinical Medication Review

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations/ implement changes on prescribing and monitoring.

Patient facing care home medication reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations/ implement changes on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations/ implement changes on prescribing and monitoring. Attend (and refer patients for) multidisciplinary meetings with GP and allied health professionals.

Telephone medicines support

Provide telephone reviews for patients with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines.

Medicine information to practice staff and patients

Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g., community pharmacy) and patients. Suggest/ recommend solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.

Management of medicines at discharge from hospital

Reconcile 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 highrisk groups of patients (e.g., those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).

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

Support the implementation and training of practice repeat prescribing policy.

Support the repeat prescribing process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions, monitoring, reviews, SMRs and where appropriate authorising/ signing prescriptions via EPs.

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.

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 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 RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs).

Assist practices in seeing and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer system.

Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.

Education and Training

Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.

Care Quality Commission

Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.

Public health

Support public health campaigns.

Provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.

The post holder is advised that the job description describes responsibilities as they are currently required, and these are subject for review and updating in the light of changing service needs.

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)

Demonstrates ability to work as a member of a team

Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary

Actively work toward developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the practice and locality

Foster and maintain strong links with all services across locality

Explores the potential for collaborative working and takes opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships

Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams

Liaises with ICS colleagues including Pharmacists on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit

Liaises with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients including but not limited to Patients GP, nurses, and other practice staff

Other healthcare professionals including MMT pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, optometrists, dentists, health and social care teams and dieticians etc.

o Locality / GP prescribing lead

o Locality managers

o Community nurses and other allied health professionals

o Community and hospital pharmacy teams

o Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimization

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Completion of an undergraduate degree in pharmacy and registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council

Minimum of 2 years experience as a pharmacist, demonstrated within a practice portfolio.

Have experience and an awareness of common acute and long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice

May hold or be working towards the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP)

May hold or be working towards an independent prescribing qualification.

Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate

Able to 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 guidelines. NB: it is anticipated level of qualification held may vary according to the level of position and the components of the role being carried out, see person specification for details.

Leadership

Demonstrate understanding of the pharmacy role in governance and is able to implement this appropriately within the workplace.

Demonstrate understanding of, and contributes to, the workplace vision

Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service reviews yearly progress and develops clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others.

Demonstrate ability to motivate self to achieve goals

Promotes diversity and equality in people management techniques and leads by example.

Management:

Demonstrate understanding of the implications of national priorities for the team and/or service

Demonstrate understanding of the process for effective resource utilisation

Demonstrate 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

Demonstrate 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 understanding of the mentorship process

Demonstrates ability to conduct teaching and assessment effectively according to a learning plan with supervision from more experience colleague

Demonstrates self-development through continuous professional development activity; working alongside senior clinical pharmacist to identifying areas to develop

Participates in the delivery of formal education programmes

Demonstrates an understanding of current educational policies relevant to working areas of practice and keeps up to date with relevant clinical practice.

Ensures appropriate clinical supervision is in place to support development

Enrolled into review and appraisal systems within the practice

Research and Evaluation:

Demonstrates ability to identify where there is a gap in the evidence base to support practice

Demonstrates ability to generate evidence suitable for presentations at practice and local level

Demonstrates ability to apply research evidence base into working place

Demonstrates understanding of principles of research governance.

Health and Safety/Risk Management

The post-holder must comply at all times with the Practices Health and Safety policies, in particular by following agreed safe working procedures and reporting incidents using the organisations Incident Reporting System.

The post-holder will comply with the Data Protection Act (1984) and the Access to Health Records Act (1990).

Equality and Diversity

The post-holder must co-operate with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment. Co-workers, patients, and visitors must be treated equally irrespective of gender, ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion etc.

Respect for Patient Confidentiality

The post-holder should respect patient confidentiality at all times and not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the requirements of the role.

Please see attached for full Job Description

Qualifications

Essential

• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council
• Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent)
• Evidence of CPD
• Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP) or prepared to work towards

Desirable

• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Specialist knowledge acquired through postgraduate diploma level or equivalent training/experience
• Independent prescriber or working towards/intent of gaining independent prescribing qualification

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 2 years post qualification experience.
• An appreciation of the nature of GPs and general practices
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients)
• Is able to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions.
• Good IT skills
• Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
• Able to work under pressure and to meet deadlines
• Produce timely and informative reports
• Gain acceptance for recommendations and influence/motivate/ persuade the audience to comply with the recommendations/agreed course of action where there may be significant barriers
• Work effectively independently and as a team member
• Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence- based healthcare.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Desirable

• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence- based healthcare.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Other

Essential

• Self-Motivation
• Adaptable
• Safeguarding adult and children level three
• Immunisation status
• Basic life support training

Desirable

• Full Driving Licence
• Information Governance toolkit completion

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).