Principal Pharmacy Technician - Dispensary

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Luton; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare organization in the UK is seeking a Principal Pharmacy Technician to manage and develop dispensary services at their Luton and Dunstable Hospital site. The ideal candidate will have extensive pharmacy experience, lead staff training and development, and be involved in strategic decision-making. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape pharmacy service delivery while ensuring efficiency and high standards of care.

Benefits

Access to high-quality training and development

Qualifications

• Experience of working to deadlines and managing own workload to meet the needs of a service.
• Experience of supervising and training staff.
• Extensive experience of pharmacy IT systems.

Responsibilities

• Manage and co‑ordinate the Dispensary and associated satellite dispensaries.
• Lead a reactive and efficient Dispensary service.
• Contribute to strategic management and business planning.

Skills

Problem-solving skills

Ability to work to deadlines

Incident resolution

Project management

Education

BTEC + NVQ Level 3 in Pharmaceutical Services or equivalent

Registration with the GPhC as a Pharmacy Technician

NVQ 3 or above in Leadership and Management or equivalent experience

Educational supervisor for ACPT or willing to undertake

Membership of APTUK

Tools

JAC-Wellsky

Microsoft Word

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Teams

Job description

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Principal Pharmacy Technician - Dispensary

The closing date is 16 November 2025

Are you a dynamic leader with a passion for driving excellence in pharmacy services? We're looking for an inspiring individual with exceptional leadership skills to join our team and take a pivotal role in managing and developing dispensary services at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital site.

This is a unique opportunity to work collaboratively across sites, partnering with the Dispensary and Outpatient Services Manager, the Head of Pharmacy, and leads at Bedford Hospital. You'll play a central role in shaping service delivery, motivating teams, and ensuring high standards of care and efficiency.

As a key member of the senior pharmacy team at Luton and Dunstable, you'll contribute to strategic decision‑making and represent the site in cross‑site meetings, including Pharmacy Operations and Clinical Governance. If you're ready to lead with vision, inspire change, and make a lasting impact, we'd love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

• To manage and co‑ordinate the Dispensary and any associated satellite dispensaries using continuous improvement methodology to develop the services and meet the immediate and longer terms needs of the trust ensuring alignment cross‑site.
• To apply highly specialist knowledge to provide the service.
• To lead a reactive and efficient Dispensary service undertaking supervision of all accountable staff and be responsible for resolving staffing and service related problems on a day to day basis.
• To manage and review processes for the induction of new staff, training and development of technical staff and trainees and service‑related education for other healthcare professionals.
• To contribute to strategic management and business planning alongside the Head of Pharmacy, Principal Pharmacists and Lead Technicians and contribute to the Pharmacy Senior Leadership Team.
• To line manage staff including Senior Pharmacy Technicians, rotational Pharmacy Technicians, Senior Pharmacy Assistants and Pharmacy Receptionists in Dispensary.
• To act as an Accredited Checking Pharmacy Technician and to facilitate other Technicians in becoming accredited to check.
• To act as professional role model for junior Pharmacy Technicians, Pre‑registration Trainee Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacy Assistants, actively demonstrating integrity, ownership and leadership in all aspects of the role.

About us

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides hospital services to a growing population of around 700,000 people living across Bedfordshire and the surrounding areas across two busy hospital sites in Bedford and Luton. Both hospital sites offer key services such as A&E, Obstetrics‑led Maternity and Paediatrics. You will be joining a friendly, high performing Trust committed to ensuring the health and wellbeing of staff. As one of the largest NHS Trusts in our region you will have access to a programme of high quality training and development to help you grow your career. The Trust continues to be committed to delivering the best patient care using the best clinical knowledge and technology available.

Our values

We not only recruit based on qualifications and experience – we recruit individuals who demonstrate the behaviours which underpin our Trusts core values. We achieve this by using values based recruitment. We are dedicated to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone, we are committed to promoting equality and diversity and creating a culture that values differences.

Job responsibilities

The full job description provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. For both overviews, please view the Job Description attachment with the job advert.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• BTEC + NVQ Level 3 in Pharmaceutical Services or equivalent
• Registration with the GPhC as a Pharmacy Technician
• NVQ 3 or above in Leadership and Management or equivalent experience
• Educational supervisor for ACPT or willing to undertake
• Membership of APTUK

Experience

• Experience of working to deadlines and managing own workload to meet the needs of a service
• Experience of formulating standard operating procedures
• Experience of supervising and training staff
• Extensive experience of pharmacy IT systems
• Ability to appropriately prioritise tasks of your own and others using suitable delegation skills
• Staff management including, performance, appraisal, sickness and HR procedures
• Experience of supporting project management and delivery
• Use of JAC‑Wellsky to issue and manage pharmaceutical products

Knowledge

• Knowledge of the NHS
• Understanding of the need of confidentiality awareness at all times
• Understanding of issues involved in stock control and how to resolve them
• Knowledge of trusts standing financial instruction
• Up to date knowledge of current legislation and accepted standards of practice, pharmaceutical guidance and Medicines Optimisation
• Good IT literacy skills to be able to use computers in all aspects of the job including a working knowledge of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams and other commonly used applications
• An understanding of incident reporting and risk management systems

Skills

• Problem‑solving skills
• Ability to work to deadlines and to achieve objectives in an organised manner
• Incident resolution
• Project management

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.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust