Are you a pharmacist who is passionate about exploring a new opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills in delivering clinical patient care?
The Chesterfield and Dronfield Primary Care Network (PCN) is looking for a Clinical Pharmacist to join their growing pharmacy team to work alongside an experienced Senior Clinical Pharmacist, a Pharmacy Technician and the practice team, in The Surgery at Wheatbridge, to develop their knowledge and skill with keen support from the existing team, to meet the diverse needs of our patients.
Interviews for this post will be held at Arc Primary Care, Dunston Innovation Centre, face to face, on the afternoon of Thursday 30th January 2025.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will be expected to develop their knowledge and skills to deliver patient-centred care through medication reviews, and long-term condition reviews, with the support of the practice team, including the on-site pharmacy team, and the wider PCN pharmacy team.
The post holder will work within their clinical competencies as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in clinical medicines management, patient-facing structured medication reviews, manage long term conditions, management of medicines on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing, manage repeat prescription authorisations and reauthorisation, acute prescription requests, while addressing both the public health and social care needs of patients in the GP practice(s) that make up the PCN. In this role, they will be supported by senior clinical pharmacists who will develop, manage and mentor them.
We are looking for an individual who is committed to improving patient care and is passionate about clinical pharmacy. The candidate must be able to work effectively as part of a diverse practice team and work towards the PCN vision. Although prior experience in General Practice would be an advantage, pharmacists from other sectors with significant transferable skills will be considered for the role. You will be expected to enrol on the CPPE Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP) if you have not completed already or can be exempted.
About us
The Surgery at Wheatbridge is a supportive and innovative practice housed in an integrated care centre, alongside Wheatbridge Health Village, in the heart of Chesterfield. The Surgery at Wheatbridge is one of the ten practices in The Chesterfield and Dronfield PCN, which is one of the largest Primary Care Networks in the UK, covering circa 100,000 patients in North East Derbyshire combined. Whilst the role is integrated and embedded in one practice, it is part of a larger and growing team of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians across the PCN, that is committed to delivering high quality care for our patients through collaborative working across all the practices.
Our mission: Committed to high quality collaborative person-centred care. Delivered with integrity and transparency, improving health and wellbeing for all.
Benefits of working with us:
* NHS Pension with employer contributions
* On appointment 27 days plus 8 Bank Holiday annual leave entitlement which rises annually with length of service up to 33 days (pro rata for part time staff)
* Entitlement of up to 5 days professional/study leave per annum, pro rata.
* Access to Well-Being Support
* Blue light Card Discount
* Practice-based/home-based flexible working arrangements available
Job responsibilities
Key duties and responsibilities
1. Hold clinics for patients requiring medication reviews i.e., a review of the ongoing need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicine taking. Provide telephone support for patients with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines.
2. Undertake structured medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
3. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacist, nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
4. See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g., Respiratory, Cardiovascular and Diabetes). Review the ongoing need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation). Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.
5. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacists, nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
6. 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.
7. Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews. Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.
8. To 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 high-risk groups of patients (e.g., those with medicine compliance aids or those in Care Homes).
9. Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other network staff, other healthcare teams (e.g., community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
10. Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate time period e.g., pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.
11. Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
12. Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components (e.g., advice on treatment pathways and patient information leaflets).
13. Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making. Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs and the PCN team, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the relevant practice team.
14. Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
15. Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy 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 each practice's computer system.
16. Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
17. Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
18. Work with the general practice teams to ensure the practices are compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
19. To support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programs available to the general public.
20. Participate in the PCN MDT. Liaise with ICB colleagues including ICB pharmacists on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit.
21. Liaise with colleagues including Royal Primary Care, ICB, STP/ICS Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit.
22. Liaise with colleagues including ICB, STP/ICS Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Heads of Medicines Management/Optimisation to benefit from peer support.
23. Foster and maintain strong links with all services across the PCN and neighbouring networks. Explore the potential for collaborative working and take opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships.
24. Liaise with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Mandatory registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council
* Membership Primary Care Pharmacists Association
* Membership Royal Pharmaceutical Society
* Foundation training in primary care
* Clinical Diploma
* Independent Prescribing or currently working towards qualification
* Minimum of 2 years post qualification experience
Experience
* Experience of working in Primary Care
* Experience of collaborative working and building relationships across a variety of organisations
Other
* Adaptable
* Self-Motivated
* Able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleagues when appropriate
* Ability to identify risk and assess/manage risk when working with individuals
* Appropriate Immunisation Status
* Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit people in their own homes
* Meets DBS reference standards and has a clear criminal record, in line with the law on spent convictions
Knowledge & Skills
* In depth therapeutic & clinical knowledge and an understanding of evidence-based healthcare
* An appreciation of GPs and General Practice environment
* Experience and/or awareness of common acute and long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice
* Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to various audiences (e.g. patients)
* Demonstrates understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice
* Follows professional & organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management
* Able to plan, manage, monitor, advise & review general medicines optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions (LTCs)
* Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails & internet to produce simple plans and reports
* Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
* Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and able to refer to Leads or GPs when appropriate
* Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines
* Produce timely & informative reports
* Gain acceptance for recommendations and influence/motivate/persuade audience to comply with recommendations/agreed course of action where there may be significant barriers
* Understand the systems of research governance
* Work effectively independently and as a team member
* Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
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.
£46,366.47 to £50,641.50 a year Depending on experience
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full-time, Flexible working, Home or remote working
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