Senior Medicines Optimisation Clinician – Commissioning & Contracting

NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board; Maidstone; On-site; GBP 58,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board is seeking a Senior Medicines Optimisation Clinician – Commissioning & Contracting to provide expert clinical and strategic support across medicines commissioning, contracting, and quality assurance. The role focuses on specialist medicines, high-cost drugs and medicines optimisation programmes.

The post holder will lead on commissioning programmes, support service improvement, and ensure governance and patient safety in collaboration with procurement

Qualifications

• Registered Pharmacist or Pharmacy Technician with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and evidence of continuing professional development.
• Postgraduate qualification in clinical pharmacy, prescribing, advanced practice, leadership or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Lead and advise on the commissioning and contracting of medicines and appliances prescribed in specialist settings, ensuring clinical effectiveness, value for money and governance arrangements.
• Provide advanced medicines optimisation expertise to support strategic commissioning, quality and safety and pathway redesign.
• Analyse prescribing, financial and performance data to identify risks and priorities for improvement.
• Review medicines-related complaints, incidents and audits to inform commissioning decisions and service improvement.
• Support procurement processes and contracts with third party providers, ensuring medicines safety and governance.

Skills

Medicines optimisation

Clinical governance

Data analysis

Strategic commissioning

Communication & influence

Education

GPhC registration

Postgraduate qualification in clinical pharmacy or prescribing

Job description

Employer NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board Employer type NHS Site Gail House Town Maidstone Salary £57,528 - £64,750 pro rata, per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 19/10/2026 23:59 Interview date 22/10/2026

NHS AfC: Band 8a

Job overview

The Senior Medicines Optimisation Clinician – Commissioning & Contracting provides advanced clinical, technical and strategic expertise to support medicines commissioning, contracting, quality assurance and performance management across Kent and Medway. The role focuses on specialist medicines, high cost drugs, commissioned pharmacy services and medicines optimisation programmes, ensuring the delivery of safe, effective, equitable and cost effective care.

Main duties of the job

Lead and advise on the commissioning and contracting of medicines and appliances prescribed in specialist settings, ensuring clinical effectiveness, value for money and appropriate medicines safety and clinical governance arrangements are in place.

Provide advanced medicines optimisation expertise to support strategic commissioning, quality and safety, pathway redesign and integration of pharmacy services across care settings.

Connect prescribing, financial, contractual, quality, safety and patient experience data to identify emerging risks, trends, opportunities and priorities for improvement.

Review of medicines related complaints, incidents, audits, provider assurance reports and service feedback, ensuring themes and learning are identified and used to inform commissioning decisions and service improvement.

Support procurement processes, including service delivery contracts with third party providers (e.g. home oxygen and online non-prescription ordering services), ensuring robust medicines safety, clinical governance and risk management arrangements are in place.

Working for our organisation

We are committed to a culture that supports all staff at NHS Kent and Medway to be the best version of themselves.

Our ability to improve outcomes for our population depends on how effectively clinical, operational, financial and strategic professionals work together to make informed commissioning decisions. That’s why our workforce works a minimum of two days-a-week on-site, with the expectation that all one-to-ones are held face-to-face and that colleagues will regularly visit the services we are commissioning to understand more about them.

We believe regular on-site working supports stronger collaboration, faster problem-solving, peer learning, visible leadership and the integration of colleagues into our organisation. We also know that culture is built through shared experiences and day-to-day interactions.

We are a flexible working friendly organisation; we aim to support you to work flexibly in a way that will suit you and us.

We work with staff to agree objectives through regular supervision, annual appraisal and access to training opportunities.

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity. In order to reflect the diversity of our population, we positively encourage applications from all areas of the community regardless of gender, race, faith, disability, age or sexual orientation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this.

All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.

Person specification

Qualifications and Professional Registration

• Registered Pharmacist or Pharmacy Technician with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and evidence of continuing professional development
• Relevant postgraduate qualification in clinical pharmacy, prescribing, advanced practice, leadership or equivalent.
• Significant experience in medicines optimisation, commissioning, contracting, service development, specialist medicines, high-cost drugs and governance or safety programmes.
• Experience supporting procurement processes, contract negotiations, business case development, commissioning frameworks or system-wide transformation programmes.

Analytical and Strategic Skills

• Experience analysing complex clinical, financial, quality, safety and performance data and using findings to inform decision-making, service improvement and commissioning recommendations.
• Experience developing and presenting reports, business cases, assurance papers or recommendations to senior stakeholders, committees or system partners.

Communication and Influencing Skills

• Evidence of communicating complex information to clinicians, commissioners, providers and senior stakeholders and influencing decision making.
• Experience presenting to senior leadership teams, governance committees or system-wide groups.

Medicines Commissioning, Governance and Service Improvement

• Experience supporting medicines governance, quality improvement, service redesign, incident review, audit or implementation of medicines-related policies and guidance.
• Experience leading commissioning programmes, pathway redesign or value based medicines optimisation initiatives.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.