Specialist Pharmacist Band 7 - clinical chemotherapy services

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust; Blackburn; On-site; GBP 46,000 - 53,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking NHS Trust as a Specialist Pharmacist in Clinical Chemotherapy Services. This role offers an exciting opportunity to provide high-quality pharmacy services to oncology and clinical haematology patients. You will be responsible for the safe preparation and supply of chemotherapy medicines, while also supporting the training and development of junior staff. With a commitment to personal development and a collaborative team environment, this position is perfect for those looking to make a significant impact in patient care. Embrace the chance to work in a supportive and innovative setting that values your contributions and fosters professional growth.

Benefits

Health and Well-being support

Fitness classes

Mindfulness sessions

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• MPharm Degree or equivalent required for this specialist pharmacist role.
• Advanced clinical pharmacy experience is essential for effective patient care.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist clinical pharmacy service for chemotherapy patients.
• Support and mentor junior staff while ensuring high-quality service.

Skills

Clinical Pharmacy

Chemotherapy Preparation

Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)

Team Management

Clinical Verification

Patient Safety

Education

MPharm Degree

Pharmaceutical Technology and Quality Assurance Diploma

Postgraduate Clinical Diploma

Tools

Pharmacy Management Systems

Clinical Governance Tools

Job description

All our vacancies are below we would love for you to apply for one of our vacancies and start a fantastic new career with us. Check out our helpful tips on our application process page.

Specialist Pharmacist Band 7 - Clinical Chemotherapy Services

NHS AfC: Band 7

Main area: Pharmacy
Grade: NHS AfC: Band 7
Contract: Permanent
Weekend working required
Hours: 37.5 hours per week (Full time - 37.5 hours per week)
Job ref: 435-D233-23-D

Site: Royal Blackburn Hospital
Town: Blackburn
Salary: £46,148 - £52,809 per annum
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 15/01/2025 23:59

At East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust our vision is to be widely recognised for providing safe, personal and effective care. We currently provide high quality services and treat over 600,000 people across East Lancashire and the surrounding area. We employ over 9,500 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work.

Job Overview

We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated specialist clinical pharmacist to join our Pharmacy Chemotherapy and Technical Services Unit at the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital. The role requires the post holder to provide a specialist clinical pharmacy service to the oncology and clinical haematology specialties, ensuring high-quality and safe preparation and supply of chemotherapy medicines to patients, in line with current commissioning criteria. There will be an extensive training programme put into place to ensure a robust personal development process and will be fully supported by the rest of the team in doing so. Once fully up to speed, there will be a requirement to support, train and mentor other junior members of staff who rotate through pharmacy chemotherapy and aseptic services, ensuring the provision and maintenance of a high-quality service. The role requires working core hours, Monday to Friday with participation in late night, weekend and bank holiday rota working, with the possibility of home working once fully trained on all aspects of the role in line with rota requirements.

Main Duties of the Job

1. Assist the Lead Oncology Pharmacist in the day-to-day management of clinical verification of chemotherapy prescriptions in line with current guidance and commissioning criteria.
2. Support the Principal Pharmacist for Technical Services in providing a high quality, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) compliant service, supplying aseptically prepared chemotherapy medicines in a timely manner to service users.
3. Support the development of pharmacists and technicians and ensure team working within the Pharmacy Technical Services Team.
4. Acting as Authorising Pharmacist under section 10 exemption.
5. Monitor and supervise staff working within the Technical Service Unit, ensuring safe systems of work are maintained and developed and that all professional and quality standards are complied with.
6. Support and deputise for the Lead Oncology Pharmacist for Clinical Oncology Services as delegated and/or as designated in their absence and appropriately represent them at relevant meetings.
7. Undertake development opportunities and in doing so, support the Clinical Director of Pharmacy in the provision of a high quality, cost effective and efficient, patient centred clinical pharmacy service to all wards and departments within the trust.

Working for Our Organisation

This is an exciting time for Aseptic Services with NHSE’s future plans for transformation and investment. This post holder will be instrumental in helping to inform and shape aseptic services for the Trust and across the ICS in the advent of future hub and spoke models, ensuring that quality assurance and patient safety will be at the heart of everything we do.

We value the personal skills, experiences, and qualities that individuals bring to our department and the Trust; creating an inclusive working environment to attract talented people who feel motivated, involved, and able to influence the future direction of our services. The well-being of staff is important to us; we have a dedicated Health and Well-being team who provide support on a range of topics, run fitness classes, and organise mindfulness sessions. As an employer, we have earned a reputation for focusing on the development of our staff and for being an organisation people are proud to work for.

Detailed Job Description and Main Responsibilities

1. Ensure an efficient high quality technical and clinical pharmacy service meets the needs of the patients and healthcare professionals within the Trust.
2. Clinically screen prescriptions for chemotherapy and biological medicines, according to Trust and national protocols and commissioning standards.
3. Provide specialist clinical advice to doctors, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals on initiating, prescribing, and monitoring of chemotherapy and supportive medicines in line with Trust and national guidance.
4. Clinically verify oncology prescriptions in line with British Oncology Pharmaceutical Association (BOPA) standards and ensure treatments are in line with commissioned services.
5. Act as an Authorised pharmacist and carry out clinical and aseptic services verification process in accordance with specific organisational policy.
6. Final check and release aseptically prepared products (including clinical trial drugs) and ensure all documentation is complete before release to wards and departments within and outside the trust.
7. Ensure all products are safely formulated and released in accordance with the departments quality systems.
8. Assess outsourced unlicensed specials products against Certificate of Conformance and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards.
9. Be trained and named on the intrathecal register to undertake check and release of intrathecal chemotherapy.
10. Assist the Lead Intrathecal Training Pharmacist with the development and delivery of intrathecal chemotherapy training.
11. Develop an in-depth knowledge of labelling and worksheets systems to support the lead technician in managing documentation systems.
12. Provide a comprehensive documentation system to underpin the quality management system to include internal audit, risk assessment, change control, Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs), training, environmental monitoring, validations, and maintenance of the deviation system.
13. Assist in the investigation of problems with unlicensed medicine products made in section 10 and outsourced.
14. Ensure safe systems of work are maintained as defined under statutory legislation, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations, regional and National Cancer Standards, controls assurance and professional standards.
15. Act as a knowledge base/resource for the oncology and haematology directorate and provide specialised professional and technical education to enable the clinical areas to meet the high standards of patient care and safety.
16. Ensure and promote safe handling, preparation, and storage of cytotoxic drugs.
17. Record significant clinical interventions, report unusual occurrences, and investigate errors and deviations and non-compliant situations.
18. Support the delivery of the pharmacy clinical governance agenda e.g., initiatives to reduce medication related risk and implement agreed strategies, work closely with clinical governance and risk co-ordinators.
19. Interpret and apply information retrieved from medical and nursing notes.
20. Report relevant adverse medicine reactions to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
21. Act on drug alerts ensuring that appropriate advice is given to staff, patients, and carers.
22. Actively participate in pharmacy team meetings.
23. Participate in the introduction and development of new aseptic chemotherapy products including product lifecycle system, validation activities, formulation and stability testing, workforce training and development, and product quality review as required.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• MPharm Degree (4 years) or equivalent
• Member GPhC.
• Pharmaceutical Technology and Quality Assurance (PTQA) Diploma.
• Postgraduate clinical diploma.
• Non-Medical Prescribing.

Experience

• Advanced practice in one or more relevant areas
• Advanced clinical pharmacy experience and practice
• Ability to deal with complex clinical issues
• Supervisory management of a team.
• Reports to committees. Experience of leading pharmacy services in primary or secondary care

Knowledge and Skills

• Understanding of local and national NHS and Pharmaceutical Policy
• Expert knowledge of GCP/GMP/GDP
• Understanding of risk management and principles of clinical governance
• Able to communicate highly complex information to senior staff both within and outside pharmacy and patients

Personal Attributes

• Able to prioritise workload and work under pressure

Dear Potential Applicant,

It is important you are made aware of the following as regards your application to East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust:

• Please note that the salary advertised is for full time hours. If this post is less than 37.5 hours per week, the salary will be pro-rata. For posts on Agenda for Change pay-scales, new entrants to the NHS will normally commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.
• This vacancy may close before the closing date if the recruiting manager deems sufficient applications have been received. Therefore it is advised to complete your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
• Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply regularly as we will use this to contact you regarding your application.
• Please note that shortlisting is completed anonymously with candidates being assessed against the essential criteria for the post. Therefore only applicants, who can clearly demonstrate how they meet our person specification criteria in their application, will be short-listed.

Disclosure and Barring Scheme (DBS)

If the role you are applying for is identified as either controlled or regulated activity as defined in the Safeguarding vulnerable Groups Act (2006), any offer of employment is provisional upon a satisfactory DBS check being obtained.

The healthcare sector is exempted from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

In line with other NHS organisations in the North West Region, the Trust is now passing the charge for undertaking a DBS check on to candidates in the event they are successfully appointed into the post for which they have applied. Candidates can choose whether to pay this over 1-3 months as a deduction from the monthly salary. However, if you are applying for a post as a BANK worker, the payment must be made in full at the time of employment checks. By applying for this vacancy you are agreeing to this undertaking in the event you are successfully appointed.

The cost of an Enhanced Disclosure will be £55.38 and for a Standard Disclosure will be £27.38.

This cost is not applicable for a Volunteer post.

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The Trust is an equal opportunities employer, committed to improving the working lives of our staff and operates a 'Zero Tolerance' policy to aggression, violence, bullying and harassment. In addition, our aim is to help protect children and vulnerable adults by providing a first-class service to the recruitment of people into positions of trust.

We aim to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from everyone irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, disability or social background.

We especially welcome applications from members of our black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, as we have identified that ELHT has an under-representation of BAME employees. Appointments will be made on merit.

Applicants who have a disability and meet the essential criteria for the job will be interviewed if you indicate you wish to be considered under the Guaranteed Interview Scheme.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process please make the recruitment services team aware as soon as possible. By telephone [phone] or email [e-mail] or write to Employment Services, Parkview Offices, Haslingden Road, Blackburn, BB2 3HH.

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.