Job description

Job responsibilities

The post holder is a pharmacist with an MPharm degree (or equivalent) plus 1 year pre-registration and at least 3 years experience of working as a registered pharmacist, with 1-2 years experience working within a general practice environment. The post holder will work within their professional boundaries as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. The post holder will have completed the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway and the IP qualification and will be undertaking or planning to undertake a Post Graduate Pharmacy Clinical Diploma.

The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with respect to prescription and medication queries. They will help support the repeat prescription system, deal with acute prescription requests, medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing. They will contribute to audit and quality improvement including promoting and support of antimicrobial stewardship. They will reduce risk and improve medicines related care through provision of direct patient facing and remote medication review.

Key priorities for this role are to:

• Completion of Independent Prescribing qualification (if not already completed) Work towards obtaining a post-graduate Clinical Pharmacy Diploma.
• Provide support and guidance to pharmacy technicians, students and junior pharmacists working within the team.
• Plan own workload to ensure high priority patient specific and other activities are dealt with in a timely fashion.
• Work with colleagues in the PPHT to carry out clinical audits and implement required changes to patient care in line with the PCN Direct Enhance Service, Investment and Impact Fund Indicators and KW PCN medicines safety and quality workstreams.
• Ensure optimum benefit for prescribed medication through high levels of compliance and concordance achieved by support for the patient and carers.
• Provide professional input to practice medicines related activities including review and support for repeat prescribing systems and medicines related policies and procedures.
• Liaise with local community pharmacy colleagues to ensure accurate and effective medication management and support collaborative working.
• Provide direct care to patients with long-term conditions and other clinical areas within scope of professional practice, communicating highly specialist advice in accordance with care plans which have been devised in accordance with local and national guidance on best practice.
• Support the care of complex patients in their own homes or in nursing or residential accommodation as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Provide professional leadership on matters relating to medicines optimisation and quality improvement, including antimicrobial stewardship, opioid deprescribing and polypharmacy structured medication reviews.
• Support service development through proposing and implementing changes for your clinical area which may also impact on other disciplines.
• Produce monthly reports on work completed.

Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility

• Medicines safety
• Contribute to medicines safety work through the analysis and prioritisation of PINCER, medication safety indicators and other practice based clinical audits to promote safe and effective prescribing. Support the process of implementing changes to prescribing and guidance for practitioners.
• Contribute to practice based incident reporting systems with an emphasis on medicines safety and the dissemination of learning to practice staff and KW PCN.
• Patient facing medicines support
• Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
• Patient facing structured medication review
• Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
• Patient facing structured medication reviews.
• Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to clinicians as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
• Patient facing domiciliary/home visits.
• Undertake clinical structured medication reviews in vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines, review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, prescribing within scope of professional practice or making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
• Telephone medicines support.
• Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• Medicine information to practice staff and patients.
• Answers medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines, suggesting and recommending solutions within scope of practice, escalating to senior colleagues where necessary. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.

Repeat prescribing

• Support Implementation of a practice repeat prescribing policy. Support the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates. Reduce medicines risk by utilising clinical system alerts and ensuring patients are booked in for necessary monitoring tests where required
• Medicines Quality Improvement programmes
• Contribute to clinical audits and improvement projects through collaboration with PPHT and external colleagues such as GP registrars, practice managers etc. Utilise clinical system search results and prescribing data to contribute to identification of areas for intervention. Promote evidence-based practice and interventions to improve patient outcomes. Support antimicrobial stewardship initiatives and promote appropriate prescribing of antimicrobials .
• Management of medicines at discharge from hospital
• To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care, step down care from care homes, including identifying and following up unexplained changes preparing recommendations for management and rectification of anomalous changes to discuss with senior pharmacist prior to implementation and with advice from GP if necessary.
• Liaise with community pharmacists and patients to communicate changes to medication and ensure safe ongoing care.

Collaborative Working Relationships

Recognises the roles of other colleagues within the organisation and their role to patient care

Demonstrates ability to work as part 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

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

Liaises with KW PCN colleagues on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and to benefit from peer support

Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required

Has an awareness of the breadth of common long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice

Minimum of 3 years post registration experience in pharmacy, as demonstrated within a practice portfolio

Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision within scope of competence

Uses skills in a range of routine situations requiring analysis or comparison of a range of options able to analyse and interpret complex information including conflicting elements related to audit, prescribing data and care of patients with multiple conditions

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

Job Description Agreement

This job description is intended to provide an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities only. There may be other duties required of the post-holder commensurate with the position. This description will be open to regular review and may be amended to take into account development within the PCN. All members of staff should be prepared to take on additional duties or relinquish existing duties in order to maintain the efficient running of the PCN.

This job description is intended as a basic guide to the scope and responsibilities of the post and is not exhaustive. It will be subject to regular review and amendment as necessary in consultation with the post holder.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) or equivalent (BPharm)

Desirable

• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 3 years post-qualification experience
• Understanding of the evidence-based principles of healthcare
• 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.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrable ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable
• form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients
• Able to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in core
• areas for long term conditions
• Good IT skills
• Able to interpret patient audit data and implement necessary patient interventions
• Able to recognise boundaries of competence and refer to senior pharmacists or GPs when appropriate.

Knowledge and skills

Essential

• Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines
• Production of timely reports.
• Work effectively as part of a team and independently
• Self-motivation
• Adaptability

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 .

Employer details

Employer name

Kingswinford and Wordsley PCN

Address

Wordsley Green Surgery

Wordsley Green

Stourbridge

West Midlands

DY8 5PD