Senior Pharmacy Technician

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust; England; On-site; GBP 37,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player in offender healthcare is seeking a compassionate Senior Pharmacy Technician to join their team at HMP Portland. This role offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on the health and well-being of individuals in a challenging environment. You will manage a dedicated team, oversee the medicines administration service, and collaborate with healthcare professionals to enhance patient care. With a focus on personal and career development, this position provides a supportive atmosphere to grow your clinical skills while contributing to the community. If you are ready to take on a rewarding challenge, this is the role for you!

Benefits

NHS pension

Career development opportunities

Inclusive workplace

Support for individuals with disabilities

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in pharmacy with mental health experience.
• Registered with GPhC as a Pharmacy Technician.

Responsibilities

• Manage the medicines management service at HMP Portland.
• Oversee a team of Pharmacy Technicians and Assistants.

Skills

Good oral and written communication skills

Knowledge of writing and working within a set of SOPs

Education

Registration with GPhC as a Pharmacy Technician

Tools

System1

Datix

Job description

Main area: Offender Healthcare

Grade Band: 6

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Occasional weekend working required)

Job ref: 277-6942010-PORT

Site: HMP Portland

Town: Portland

Salary: £37,338 - £44,962 pa

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 19/02/2025 23:59

Job overview

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast-paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to break into offender healthcare and develop your career.

Due to our ongoing success as the healthcare provider at HMP Portland, we are currently expanding opportunities due to additional commissioned services. We are currently looking for a compassionate, knowledgeable and motivated Senior Pharmacy Technician to join our friendly team at HMP Portland.

Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients' future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.

As part of our Pharmacy team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (including pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, which encourages career and personal development for all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.

Main duties of the job

As a Senior Pharmacy Technician, you will be responsible for the daily management of the medicines management service at HMP Portland. This will include overseeing a team of 4 Pharmacy Technicians and 3 Pharmacy Assistants, ensuring all daily duties are carried out, completing supervisions and 1-2-1's, and completing PDRs and appraisals.

You will manage the medicines administration service as well as the printing and coordination of the repeat prescription process. You will administer medicines to patients against a valid prescription on the wings and support junior colleagues with any queries relating to medicines administration.

You will work closely with the Regional Pharmacist to participate in audits, quality improvement projects, and developing any implementation of service improvements and updates to SOPs.

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities, and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London, we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We Listen
• We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To provide a medicines management service to the allocated prison(s) on a daily basis with the professional support of a prison services pharmacist.
• To oversee the ordering/supply of repeat prescriptions.
• To utilise stock supplies and out of hours supplies when patients' own medication is not available.
• To have accreditation as a checking technician and/or medicines optimisation.
• To ensure high standards of work and that Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are read and adhered to.
• To facilitate the medication supply on repeat prescriptions (using System1), this will include tasking GP’s/NMP’s to generate repeat prescriptions, ensure they are signed and given to pharmacy promptly within the Repeat Prescription management process.
• To supervise and assist staff to ensure prompt medicine administration times are adhered to.
• To be competent in advising patients in all aspects of their medication to ensure adherence and compliance. This should include, but not be exclusive to, inhaler technique, interaction, mechanism of drug action/normal doses regimen, and side effects.
• To ensure high standards of work and to ensure all Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Oxleas and Oxleas Prison Services Policies including – Standards of Medicine Management, IP Policy, Homely Remedies Policy are read, understood, and adhered to.
• To have, or work towards, an awareness/knowledge of medicines information to support adherence and compliance by using BNF, BNF-e, e-MC, Medicines information line and other recognized sources of information.
• To escalate any concerns about patients and their medication – including non-compliance – to appropriate staff and within confidentiality guidelines, including concerns of patients who need support from the Mental Health Team, Substance misuse team or Prison staff.
• Controlled Drugs – to order, monitor and maintain all legal paperwork concerning medication patients with controlled drugs in accordance with local policy.
• Cool chain management and administration of fridge line medication – to ensure daily fridge temperature checks are completed and recorded, and any breaches of the cold chain are escalated according to SOP/Policy.
• To use System1 to document any information about patients and their medication - non-compliance/non-attendance (intentional and unintentional), allergies and raise concerns with appropriate staff/teams.
• To use System1 to create ledgers and call up lists for patients to attend Healthcare/Houseblock treatment rooms to facilitate medicines administration daily.
• Record keeping – to ensure all policies and protocols are adhered to and documented on S1 as well as keeping meticulous paper records.
• To administer medicines to offenders against a valid prescription on the house blocks/Healthcare safely and promptly whilst adhering to all policies and SOPs using S1 to facilitate this.
• To use Datix to report any incidents or concerns.
• To have knowledge of the Critical medication List – to administer critical medication when required and report any concerns/non-compliance to appropriate teams/staff.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

Requirements

• Proof of right to work documentation
• Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID
• Proof of address documentation
• Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.
• 5 years address history will be needed.
• Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.
• Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Registration with GPhC as a Pharmacy Technician

Experience

• 5+ years of working in a pharmacy
• Mental Health experience

Skills

• Good oral and written communication skills
• Knowledge of writing and working within a set of SOPs

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that welcomes and supports individuals of all abilities. Remember, if you meet the minimum criteria for this role and you have a disability, you can be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme - Please ensure you select this on your application form. We would encourage you to be open about your needs so we can work with you to design a comfortable and accessible interview experience. Any information you provide regarding a disability or a need for adjustments will be treated in confidence and will only be shared with colleagues who are supporting this request.

If you require any adjustments to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know by adding the relevant details when scheduling your preferred interview date and time. Please feel free to contact the appointing manager to discuss your needs.

We encourage applicants to contact the hiring manager before their interview if they have any questions about the role or the process. This is a great way to get clarity and prepare effectively for the interview.

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.