Clinical Pharmacist

NHS; Taunton; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

An opportunity exists for an independent prescriber pharmacist to join a collaborative team within the Taunton Central Primary Care Network. The role focuses on enhancing patient care through effective medication management, supporting GPs and community pharmacies, and ensuring compliance with treatment guidelines. Candidates should have a strong clinical background and excellent communication skills to facilitate successful integration into the healthcare team.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 2 years post-qualification experience.
• In-depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge.
• Understanding of evidence-based healthcare principles.

Responsibilities

• Develop relationships with community pharmacists.
• Conduct clinical medication reviews.
• Manage medication safety in care homes.

Skills

Interpersonal skills

Communication skills

Negotiation skills

Analytical skills

Education

Clinical diploma in Independent prescriber

Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council

Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Job description

The post holder will work directly with multi-disciplinaryteams to improve clinical effectiveness and person-centred outcomes. The role will be based within the GP memberpractices providing support to the GPs and other healthcare professionalswithin the teams to improve the health of patients through the rational andsafe use of medicines. The post holderwill contribute to the efficient working of the PCN team by leading on keyareas in relation to medicines optimisation. The role will include face to face and remotepatient contact, as well as liaison with colleagues in community pharmacy, carehomes and secondary care.

For furtherinformation about the role or an informal discussion, please contact Kathryn Kyle [e-mail]

Main duties of the job

Todevelop and facilitate a good working relationship with community pharmacistsand other local providers of healthcare.

Toliaise effectively with other health care teams concerned with the patient careas appropriate and with all other disciplines within the practice.

Toplan and organise own workload, including audit and project work, and trainingsessions for members of the medicines management team, practice team, communitypharmacy team, community nurse team, patients, carers, etc.

Toensure that all patient information following consultations, and telephoneencounters are recorded accurately on the computer.

Tomaintain registration as a pharmacist and comply with appropriate professionalcodes.

Toattend practice and other meetings of relevance as required.

Participatein the induction, education and training of new members of practice staffincluding students where appropriate.

Asappropriate to the post, to maintain and develop professional competence andexpertise, keep up to date with medical/therapeutic evidence and opinion andlocal and national service legislation and policy developments, participate inthe appraisal process and agree objectives and a personal development plan.

Toundertake any other duties commensurate with the post holders grade as agreedwith the post holders line manager

About us

Taunton CentralPrimary Care Network is a relatively new organisation but our five memberpractices have a strong history of collaborative working to develop the bestpatient-centred care and services. The PCN has approximately 66,500 patientsregistered with four practices in Taunton and one practice in the neighbouringvillage of Bishops Lydeard. We pride ourselves on our ability and willingnessto adopt innovative ways of working that improve patient care and make our PCNa rewarding place to work.

Job responsibilities

Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility

Note: Duties and Areas of Responsibility will vary between the practices according to needs. They may include the following examples:

See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required.

Review the on-going 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.

Run own long-term condition clinics where responsible for prescribing as an independent prescriber.

Patient facing Clinical Medication

Review

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

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients/carers and produce recommendations /implement changes in 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 for /implement changes in prescribing and monitoring.

Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.

Patient facing medicines support

Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines

Management of common/minor/self -limiting

Managing caseload of 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

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 relevant 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.

Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes

Unplanned hospital admissions

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 highrisk patient groups.

Management of medicines at discharge

from hospital

To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients, dispensers 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/dispensing

Support 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.

Support the development of repeat dispensing services where appropriate.

Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place

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.

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).

Information management

Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making

Undertake clinical audits of prescribing to identify areas for improvement independently or in collaboration with colleagues. Present results & provide leadership on suggested change.

Contribute to local & national research initiatives

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 maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer system.

Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.

Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.

Education and Training

Provide education and training to primary healthcare team & visiting students 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

To support public health campaigns.

To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public

Contract Work

Contribute toall GMS, PCN Network DES, QOF, DSQS contract work

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council
• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Clinical diploma in Independent prescriber
• A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Experience

• 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
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare

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.