Pharmacist

Transformation Unit; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 57,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Disability confident employer

Job summary

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a Band 7 Senior Clinical Pharmacist to deliver specialist clinical pharmacy services across inpatient and community settings. The role supports training, prescribing progression, and MDT collaboration within a dynamic mental health pharmacy team.

You will participate in on-call duties, contribute to medicines optimisation, and travel between sites as required. Training opportunities and service development are encouraged.

Qualifications

• MPharm degree and GPhC registration are required.
• Postgraduate certificate/diploma in mental health or pharmacy practice is preferred.
• Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society or equivalent membership is expected.

Responsibilities

• Deliver a comprehensive clinical pharmacy service to inpatients and community teams.
• Provide medicines-related consultations, support discharge planning, and optimise medicines.
• Supervise trainees and progress to independent prescribing where appropriate.
• Participate in on-call and weekend duties as part of the pharmacy team.

Skills

Communication

Time management

Independent decision-making

Empathy

Clinical pharmacy knowledge

Education

MPharm or equivalent

GPhC registration

Postgraduate qualification in mental health/pharmacy practice

Royal Pharmaceutical Society membership

Job description

Employer South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Lambeth Hospital Town Stockwell Salary £39,959 - £56,515 per annum plus HCAs (Inner or Outer depending on the location) Salary period Yearly Closing 02/11/2026 23:59

Band 7

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role.We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.

As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

An opportunity has arisen to join our established, friendly, and dynamic clinical pharmacy team at South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

We welcome newly qualified pharmacists and pharmacists willing to start their career in mental health pharmacy. We offer a structured training programme for the first few years in practice and in the field of mental health care.

The required job role is set at Band 7 Senior Clinical Pharmacist Level, and you will initially begin your job as a Band 6 Clinical Pharmacist and progress to Band 7 on completion of key objectives and when agreed skills and standards are met. Applications from current Band 7 are welcome.

Vacancies are available at the Lambeth Hospital.

As part of our ambitious plans to modernise our buildings and services, Lambeth Hospital willbe closing in 2023 and all our inpatient services will move to a new, high-quality building, called Douglas Bennett House, on the Maudsley site.

We are committed to get the very best out of our staff and support staff in their career aspirations. Once established in post, there are further opportunities for development and career progression in a variety of settings, for example education and training, quality improvement, research, clinical trials, independent prescribing and more.

Main duties of the job

You will be supported by a dedicated supervisor and will have the opportunity to undertake short courses on mental health pharmacy and work alongside expert pharmacists in the field.

During your training you will provide pharmaceutical care to inpatients and community patients with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, as well as work in one of our three main dispensary sites. You will join the on-call rota and late duty rota where applicable. You may be required to travel to various hospital and community mental health teams sites.

Working for our organisation

About the team

The pharmacy department provides dispensing services from the Maudsley, Lambeth, Bethlem Royal hospitals and Ladywell unit and a clinical pharmacy service to 1,000 inpatients and 3,000 community patients. The Medicines Information Centre at the Maudsley is the national centre for information on psychotropics. The department produces the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines, now on its 14th Edition, and is the world’s leading pharmacy centre for research in psychiatry, having published over 300 clinical papers in the past 25 years.

The pharmacy is also part of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Clinical Academic Group (PSCAG) which incorporates more than 1,800 staff and students and includes staff from all four organisations within King’s Health Partners with the aim to integrate the work across all partner organisations to improve practice, research and healthcare/academic education and training strategy. Our CAG includes a variety of professional groups, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, scientists, healthcare professionals, students and administrative and support staff.

About the location

Lambeth Hospital is based in south London, and is close to a vibrant high street with lots of shops and restaurants. It is within walking distance of Brixton, Clapham North, Clapham High Street and Wandsworth Road stations, offering easy transport links to other parts of London. The site offers parking and is not located within the congestion charge zone.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Job Purpose:

• To deliver a comprehensive clinical pharmacy service to inpatient wards and community mental health teams in line with Trust policies, procedures and standards.
• To support patients to gain maximum benefit from their medicines, through medicines related consultations with patients and carers, involving patients in treatment decisions, and improving patient and carer satisfaction with information they receive about medicines
• To support the multidisciplinary inpatient teams to use medicines safely and effectively and reduce medicines wastage through medicines optimisation and quality improvement programmes, and by providing medicines related training
• To develop post-registration foundation pharmacist skills in accordance with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS) Foundation Pharmacy Framework and work towards specialist mental health pharmacy skills
• To act as a practice supervisor in the training and education of trainee pharmacists and junior pharmacists (once progressed to B7)
• To prescribe medicines within competence and scope of practice, once qualified to do so by completing the post-graduate certificate in Independent Prescribing (once progressed to B7)
• To partake in the pharmacy on-call service (Emergency Duty Cover, bank holiday rotas) and a Saturday service.

Key Responsibilities:

• To ensure safe and effective use of medicines at ward, team and dispensary level. This includes adhering to Trust policies, pharmacy procedures, local and national guidelines, and legal requirements.
• To be responsible for providing clinical pharmacy input as part of the multidisciplinary team (MDT). This will include providing advice to clinicians on medicines, including the use of unlicensed medicines use and areas of practice where the evidence base is lacking, liaising with the medicines information pharmacists where appropriate.
• To be responsible for providing a clinical pharmacy service to groups of patients
  • Ensure effective outcomes of treatment with medicines
  • Monitor patients for potential and actual adverse effects of their medicines
  • Ensure the effective, timely and accurate supply of medicines suitable for use as an inpatient and appropriately labelled for discharge if applicable.
  • Support planning for discharge, including liaising with community team pharmacists for follow-up appointments where appropriate
  • Undertake medicines-related consultations to inpatients during their admission and run medication groups on the ward.
  • Take steps to ensure patients understand the purpose of their medicines and deal with any practical issues that may prevent the optimal use of their medicines.
• To assess medicine regimes both during enquiry answering and/or routine ward visits, providing highly specific advice to other clinical team members on the management of often complex medicine related issues, such as complex drug interactions, high dose antipsychotic prescribing, unlicensed use of medicines etc.
• To prescribe medicines within their scope of practice and in line with Trust policy if qualified and registered with the GPhC as an independent pharmacist prescriber.
• To be able to present information in a suitable format (e.g. written and/or verbal) and style for the target audience. Barriers to effective communication may include learning disability, mental impairment, non-consenting/noncompliant patients, and patients detained under the mental health act who may be violent/aggressive.
• To provide information in a timely manner, to the appropriate individual (in accordance with the degree of urgency of the request or issue identified).
• To assist the principal pharmacist in communicating relevant SLaM Trust decisions and policy relating to medicines to local clinical areas.
• To prepare and deliver training for clinical staff (e.g. nurses, support workers, junior doctors) on a wide range of medicines-related issues. To provide clinical supervision to a team of pharmacists, and to act as a practice supervisor to pre-registration training pharmacists and junior pharmacists.
• To support local implementation of Trust Medicines Management Policies within own clinical area, and ensure medicines are handled safely and securely within designated clinical areas.
• To participate in and develop quality improvement initiatives, undertake local and national audits, and engage in research and medicines evaluation as required by the Chief Pharmacist

Person specification

Qualifications

• MPharm Degree or equivalent
• Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), with mandatory CPD
• Postgraduate certificate/diploma in mental health or pharmacy practice or equivalent
• Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society or Member / associate member of the CMHP

Experience

• Relevant experience in patient-facing pharmacist roles
• Previous participation in audit, development of audit tools, data collection and collation
• Relevant experience in NHS hospital pharmacy
• Previous experience in providing clinical mental health services
• Experience in education and training
• Evidence of implementing new procedures

Knowledge / Skills

• Good written and verbal communication
• Desire to work in psychiatric pharmacy
• Empathy and understanding of medication issues facing people with mental health problems and their carers
• Demonstrates commitment and ability to develop own knowledge, skills and quality of work in line with local and national standards
• Good computer skills, in particular for completing spreadsheets, graphs and reports
• Good time management with ability to prioritise workload and meet deadlines
• Ability to work without close supervision, making decisions and acting upon them within the limitations and understanding of the job responsibilities, or to refer appropriately

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity.

Welcome to your candidate journey
Our Candidate Recruitment Information Pack is designed to help you learn more about our Trust, understand the recruitment process, and prepare a strong application. We encourage you to explore the pack and use the guidance, tips and resources available to help you feel informed, confident, and ready to showcase your best self:

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when writing job applications

If you choose to use AI or other tools to assist in writing your application, it's essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting information section. While AI can help streamline the writing process, these tools cannot fully grasp the context or requirements of the job you’re applying for. There is also a risk that it can generate false or misleading information.
AI-generated job applications can often be generic, impersonal and may not accurately reflect your qualifications, knowledge, skills, and experiences. It is crucial that you personalise your supporting statement by articulating these in your unique voice. Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting information section is not advocated by South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process.

We monitor applications for any behaviour that could create an unfair advantage, and we check all references carefully. You are likely to be tested on your experience at interview, so be honest and make sure all the information in your application is correct.

That requests for Skilled Worker sponsorship will be considered on a case-by-case basis, where applicable, subject to the role and meeting the relevant eligibility requirements and the Trust’s policy. Applying for a role does not guarantee that sponsorship will be available or approved.

• That we are a smoke-free Trust

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion , Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe’.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.