Prescribing Pharmacist

NHS; Brighton; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player in healthcare is seeking a dedicated Clinical Pharmacist to enhance patient care through expert medication management. This pivotal role involves conducting comprehensive medication reviews, leading a dynamic prescribing team, and ensuring high-quality care for patients with long-term conditions. You will work collaboratively with GPs and healthcare professionals to optimize medicines use, improve health outcomes, and implement best practices in prescribing. If you are passionate about patient care and looking to make a significant impact in a supportive environment, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 2 years post-qualification experience in clinical pharmacy.
• Registration with General Pharmaceutical Council is mandatory.

Responsibilities

• Conduct medication reviews and provide recommendations for prescribing.
• Lead the prescribing team and manage day-to-day operations.
• Support patients in managing long-term conditions effectively.

Skills

Clinical Pharmacy Expertise

Medicines Optimisation

Medication Reviews

Leadership Skills

Communication Skills

Clinical Audit

Patient Management

Education

General Pharmaceutical Council Registration

Clinical Postgraduate Qualification

Chronic Disease Management Qualification

Leadership and Management Qualification

Tools

System One

Job description

To work alongside GPs and other health professionals to provide expertise in clinical pharmacy, medicines optimisation, management and safety through structured medication reviews. You will provide leadership for medicines use to ensure patients experience high quality patient care that will improve health outcomes and efficiency of the primary care team by providing direct, accessible and timely expertise which include telephone contact with patients.

Main duties of the job

The main duties will include using your own clinical competencies as part of a multi-disciplinary team and ICB to provide face to face and remote medications review, support management of patients with long-term conditions and co-morbidities, undertake medicines reconciliation, polypharmacy management, provide telephone consultation, repeat prescription standardisations, implementation and management, drug monitoring management, shared-care agreement management and clinical audits.

The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational effectiveness within primary care, so requires motivation, passion and resilience to deliver an excellent service within general practice.

You will work as part of the prescribing team, leading and supporting the team by providing day-to-day line management. You will represent the surgery as prescribing lead for the surgery within the PCN and the ICB.

About us

Sussex Primary Care runs a number of GP Practices across Sussex providing excellent primary care in the heart of the community. We are a learning organisation that listens to our team of staff, patients and partners to guide our future. At the heart of our vision are our patients and their needs.

Job responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Long-Term Conditions

• Contribute to improved health outcomes in long-term conditions for the practices.
• Support patients to manage their long-term conditions.
• Carry out clinical medication reviews for patients on multiple medications for long-term conditions.
• Review if prescribing is appropriate in line with current guidance, cost-effective and safe; identify unmet need, stop unnecessary/ineffective medicines. Implement own prescribing changes as an independent prescriber.
• Review of pathology results for patients under their care.
• Contribute to achievement of QOF targets to improve health outcomes.
• Make appropriate recommendations to the wider clinical team including senior pharmacists, senior clinical practitioners and GPs.

Clinical Medication Reviews

• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients.
• Produce recommendations for senior clinical practitioners, GPs, etc. for ongoing prescribing and monitoring recommendations.
• Review medications for new patients to ensure safe, cost-effective prescribing in line with practice/local prescribing policies.

Care Home Medication Reviews

• Undertake clinical medication review with patients and staff within the care home.
• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medication ordering and administration.

Domiciliary Reviews

• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations.
• Attend and refer patients (if needed) to the multidisciplinary team.
• Work with patients to educate about medication safety, storage and ordering within the home.
• Identification of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through computerised searches.
• Review all relevant safety alerts (e.g. MHRA) and ensure any action required is undertaken.
• Conduct medication reviews for patients identified as above.

Unplanned Hospital Admissions

• Review the use of medications most commonly associated with unplanned admissions and re-admission through audit and individual patient reviews.
• Put protocol and policies in place to implement changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.

Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments

• Manage caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments whilst working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.
• Signposting to the community pharmacy and referring to GPs and other healthcare professionals where appropriate.

Medicines Support and Information for practice staff and patients (patient facing or telephone)

• Answer medical information queries from GPs, Nurses, practice staff, patients and third-party providers.
• Provide education on medicines related topics to the clinical team.
• Provide advice on suitable alternative medications in the event of a medicine being unavailable.
• Provide education for the clinical team on new medicines.
• Provide specialist knowledge and advice on pharmaceutical matters.
• Provide regular education sessions for the clinicians at the practices to discuss audit results and agree an action plan for improving standards within clinical areas.
• To provide specialist knowledge on medication monitoring and ensure a system for implementation is in place.
• To answer queries from administration staff regarding medication requests where appropriate to save GP time.

Management of medicines at discharge from hospital

• To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospital/intermediate care; identify and rectify unexplained changes, manage these changes without referral to the GP; perform a clinical medication review; produce a post-discharge medicines care plan including dose titration and booking of follow-up tests, and work 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).
• Reconcile medication from clinic appointment correspondence, identifying any unexplained changes and rectifying these by communication with the secondary care provider. Ensure patients are fully aware of any changes and that a plan for monitoring/dose titration is in place.

Repeating Prescribing

• Produce and implement repeat prescribing policy within the surgery.
• To re-authorise medication for future repeat prescribing within scope of competence.
• Manage medication review dates and ensure that any clinical monitoring or reviews are actioned.
• To ensure the practice repeat prescribing system is safe, efficient and helps minimise waste.

Service Development

• Review NICE and other evidence-based guidance as it is issued, to evaluate any impact on medicines and prescribing.
• Undertake regular clinical audit to support implementation of clinical guidance across the practice.
• To take part in practice clinical meetings when appropriate.
• Encourage cost-effective prescribing within the practice, including adherence to local formulary.
• Build good working relationships with local Medicines Management Team members.
• Improve communication about medication-related issues between the practice and both the patient and other care providers.

Leadership and Management

• Be the first line manager for the prescribing team.
• Support new starters with induction, training and mentoring.
• Liaise with clinicians, managers and team leads.
• Deal with immediate responses to complaints relating to prescription requests, escalating as appropriate.
• Implement changes as per management instruction.
• Continually assess and evaluate the prescribing systems, recommend changes and improvements to the management team as appropriate.
• Participate in clinical meetings and manage prescribing team meetings.
• Identify team training needs.
• Help the team prioritise workload.

Administration

• Liaise with community pharmacists to ensure efficient and well-managed repeat prescribing systems.
• Liaise with other prescribing leads within the PCN and the ICB.
• Liaise with Care Home managers ensuring they have a point of contact if they have any queries.

Personal Development

Personal development is a cornerstone of professional growth and is integral to expanding the scope of practice for healthcare professionals. The commitment to ongoing learning and skill enhancement is not only a personal journey but also a fundamental aspect of providing high-quality patient care.

Through continuous personal development, you will deepen your expertise, stay abreast of advancements in your field, and acquire new competencies. This commitment to growth is not only reflected in the pursuit of additional certifications and training but also in the cultivation of qualities such as adaptability, critical thinking, and effective communication. The results of personal development efforts are systematically documented in appraisals and clinical supervision sessions, to support the enhancement of your scope of practice.

Flexibility

This job description is intended to provide a broad outline of the role. You may be required to carry out other duties commensurate with their banding and competence.

Professional Registration

All employees who are required to be a member of a professional body are required to hold relevant registration and must comply with the standards and guidelines of their professional practice, education and conduct and must act within the boundary of the code of conduct at all times.

Safeguarding Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults

Sussex Primary Care is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Rigorous recruitment checks are carried out and successful applicants may be required to undertake an Enhanced Disclosure via the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Registration with General Pharmaceutical Council.
• Hold or working towards a clinical postgraduate qualification.
• Member of Faculty Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
• Chronic Disease / Long Term Condition Management Qualification (min L6).
• Completed or working towards the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (CPPE).
• Leadership and Management Qualification.

Experience

• Minimum of 2 years post-qualification experience.
• Be able to assess, evaluate, prescribing systems, recommend changes and improvements to the management team as appropriate.
• Experience in identifying training needs within the team.
• Experience in communication with community pharmacies to ensure efficient prescribing.
• Meets enhanced DBS standards comprising of a clear criminal record, in line with the law on spent convictions.
• Up to date with mandatory training including safeguarding.
• Ability to maintain a positive working environment.
• To delegate appropriate tasks to the appropriate person.
• Act as a positive role model.
• Participate in planning and implementing changes within the surgery.
• Contribute and participate in the development of local guidelines, protocols and standards.
• Provide prescribing leadership to the practice executive team and help lead on areas including but not limited to QOF and CQC.
• Monitor the safety and effectiveness of your own clinical practice through quality assurance strategies such as the use of audit, supervisor feedback, case review and peer review.
• Working within community development initiatives.
• In-depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare.
• An appreciation in the leadership and management required within Primary Care and General Practice.
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills.
• Be able to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in the core areas for Long Term Conditions.
• Be able to make appropriate clinical assessments when prescribing or re-prescribing acute or repeat medications.
• 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 demonstrate working within competencies, aware of professional boundaries and seeks assistance when appropriate.
• Able to manage, action and report on medical safety alerts from MHRA.
• Able to run reports, audit, interpret and provide an action plan for effective medicines management.
• Able to work under pressure and work within deadlines.
• Produce timely and informative reports and able to confidently disseminate these within the clinical and management team.
• Demonstrates accountability for developing professional expertise and direct service provision.
• Good IT skills and experience with System One.
• Work effectively, independently and as part of a team.
• Self-motivated.
• Adaptable.

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.