Advanced Clinical Pharmacist for Acute Virtual Ward

Virtual Ward- Advanced Clinical Pharmacist

There is 1 WTE position (37.5 hours per week) available. Applications for full and part-time working will be considered. No weekend, bank holiday, or on-call working. Hybrid working available.

Are you passionate about making a difference in the lives of people in our communities across Plymouth, the South Hams, and West Devon? Do you thrive in a dynamic and innovative healthcare environment? We have some very exciting opportunities to join our integrated acute Virtual Ward team. This project forms part of a wider plan to improve urgent and emergency healthcare delivery as well as step up and step down care from the acute hospital.

We are committed to revolutionising healthcare delivery for patients. Our aim is to provide high-quality, patient-centred care in the comfort of their own homes, reducing length of hospital stay and admissions and enhancing overall well-being through enhanced care coordination.

The Role

As the Advanced Clinical Pharmacist, you will play a critical role in our multidisciplinary team, covering the expanded virtual ward that we have planned for our locality. The post holder will work closely with consultants, GPs, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to ensure seamless, integrated care on the virtual ward, by providing specialist medicines assessments and interventions for those admitted to the acute Virtual Ward.

This role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route.

Main duties of the job

Key Responsibilities

1. Leadership within the Virtual ward regarding medicines and medicines governance.
2. Medicine reconciliation.
3. Structured medication reviews including complex polypharmacy and deprescribing.
4. Prescribing and accurate record keeping regarding medications.
5. Answering medication queries raised by the multidisciplinary team and providing clinical support to the Virtual Ward Technician.
6. Discharge facilitation.

About us

Livewell Southwest is an independent, award-winning social enterprise delivering integrated health and social care services across Plymouth, South Hams, and West Devon, with specialist services in parts of Devon and Cornwall. Our teams work in community hospitals, GP practices, sports centres, and health hubs.

As an organisation with a strong social conscience we are guided by our values, kindness, respect, inclusivity, ambition, responsibility, and collaboration. We focus on transforming services to ensure sustainability, while empowering staff and those we serve.

We involve the people we care for, along with their families and carers, in shaping the care they receive, striving to deliver the right care at the right time and place. Centering our work on individual needs helps people lead healthy, independent lives.

We prioritise employees' development, offering protected CPD time, training pathways, leadership programs, and funding for qualifications like the Care Certificate and Nurse Training Scholarships. Our induction and preceptorship programs ensure a smooth transition into our organisation.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical and Professional

1. To be responsible for and lead the provision of a high quality, specialised clinical pharmacy service to ensure the safe, clinically effective and cost-efficient use of medicines.
2. To be responsible for the delivery of the clinical pharmacy services to nominated areas, including attendance at consultant ward rounds, providing expert pharmaceutical advice and setting standards for junior pharmacists to emulate.
3. To be responsible for the provision of professional pharmaceutical advice to healthcare colleagues, patients, and carers as necessary.
4. To develop and monitor pharmacy initiatives such as medicines reconciliation on admission and provision of discharge summaries to GPs, which promote seamless transfer of patients from secondary care to primary care and vice versa.
5. To be responsible for the development of virtual based pharmaceutical care initiatives e.g. poly-pharmacy medication reviews, patient and carer counselling, discharge planning, assessing patient concordance and improved communication with primary care healthcare professionals.
6. To lead on and develop policy or service changes within Virtual Wards which improve ward or community services and be responsible for their implementation.
7. To promote and monitor compliance with the South and West Devon Joint Formulary and to assist in formulary applications and review for medicines relevant to patients within the Virtual Ward.
8. To be responsible for monitoring prescribing practice to promote cost-effective and economic use of resources and contribute to the establishment and implementation of prescribing guidelines within Virtual Wards.
9. To be lead on and be responsible for reporting and review of clinical and other pharmacy related audits within Virtual Wards.
10. To be responsible for the development of junior pharmacy staff within Virtual Wards including rotational pharmacists and trainee pharmacists.
11. To provide evidence of Continuing Professional Development on an annual basis at appraisal, in accordance with guidance issued by the General Pharmaceutical Council.
12. To cover for ward pharmacists as required, during periods of absence.
13. Occasional dispensary cover including dispensing and checking of medication following local SOPs.

Analytical and Judgemental Skills

1. Have highly developed skills for analysing medications, patient information in order to provide advice on medicines, dosages, production issues in areas where information and evidence is lacking, and medical or other opinion differs.
2. Clinical screening of prescription charts and discharge prescriptions, to ensure prescriptions are safe and appropriate.
3. Responding to and recording medicines information requests from prescribers and other healthcare professionals and providing advice on medicines proactively. In many cases this is a complex task involving highly specialist up to date knowledge, effective search strategies, evaluation of the evidence base and formulation of an appropriate response.
4. To be responsible for the investigation and monitoring of medicines related incidents relating to Virtual Wards, recommending and implementing change as required to improve patient safety, collating these for discussion at pharmacy team meetings and at the Medicines Governance Group.

Clinical Governance

1. To be responsible for and lead on clinical governance and risk management through interventions which optimise the management of medicines in Virtual Wards, supporting best practice throughout all areas of responsibility.
2. To participate in and lead multidisciplinary groups in the review and development of selected medicines related policies and procedures relating to Virtual Wards and present to the MGG.
3. To lead on the development and review of documents e.g. Patient Group Directions, Policies, Guidelines and Protocols relating to Virtual Wards and presenting reviewed documents to the MGG and DTC.
4. To support professional leads in identifying and addressing evidence-based medicine practice consistent with the requirements of clinical governance and of national directives.
5. To work with the Pharmacy Senior Management Team to lead on continuous quality improvement projects and audit within Virtual Wards.

Managerial

1. To provide mentoring, training, supervision and line management of substantive and rotational pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other pharmacy staff and students as required, including appraisals and performance reviews.
2. To organise the trainee pharmacist timetable when they rotate through Virtual Wards.
3. To act as Designated Supervisor to a Trainee Pharmacist annually as required.
4. To mentor/buddy other NMPs within Livewell SW.
5. To Act as a Designated Prescribing Practitioner, Educational supervisor or Practice Supervisor as appropriate for members of the team undertaking their independent prescribing training.

Freedom to Act

1. Pharmacists are expected to work largely unsupervised and to act on their own professional judgement.
2. Clinical supervision from another health professional can be arranged and is to be encouraged.
3. Technical roles are defined by standard operating procedures which should always be followed.
4. Clinical roles are supported by policies and guidelines within which the pharmacist is allowed professional discretion/interpretation.
5. This role includes setting the parameters under which other pharmacy staff will operate.

Training and Education

1. To lead on the training and development of pharmacy staff within Virtual Wards and support training of other staff members within the team as appropriate.
2. To plan, develop and deliver appropriate training and education to healthcare colleagues, carer groups and outside agencies to promote the safe use and clinical application of medicines.
3. To be responsible for and lead on the induction of new pharmacy staff within Virtual Wards.
4. To assist and lead, where appropriate, on the training provided to pharmacy students, trainee pharmacists and other pharmacy staff.

Health, Safety and Security

1. To work safely in the dispensary, ward, patient residence, and office environments ensuring any risks identified to health and safety are managed or escalated to line manager.
2. To ensure safety and security of medicines, prescription stationery and patient identifiable documents according to locally agreed standard operating procedures.
3. To inform line manager of any breaches of safety or security or if agreed procedures are thought to be inadequate to manage the risk.

Person Specification

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Well-motivated, conscientious and reliable.
• Readily approachable, sensitive and supportive.
• Strong professional values.

Experience

Essential

• Experience as a practising pharmacist, including experience of working as a member of a Multidisciplinary Team.
• Experience of networking with other healthcare professionals across the full range of disciplines at all levels.
• Experience of review and development of pharmacy or medication related policies, procedures and PGDs.
• Experience of audit work.
• Experience of delivering education to healthcare staff and patients or carers via workshops, informal discussion or formal lectures.

Desirable

• Experience of working in different sectors of Pharmacy across the system.
• Experience of preparing documents for clinical governance groups and presenting these to a committee.
• Experience of leading on audit and producing reports.
• Experience of mentoring, supervision and line management.
• Experience of influencing, negotiating and implementing change in practice.

Specific skills

Essential

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills including verbal, written and formal presentation skills for a wide variety of audiences.
• Computer literate including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Email and Internet.
• Excellent critical appraisal and analytical skills, with a sound understanding of evidence-based medicine.
• Good listening skills & excellent networking and negotiating skills.
• Can work with and influence managers, nursing and medical staff.
• Leadership and team working skills.
• Ability to act as an excellent role model or mentor.
• Self-motivated and able to motivate others with enthusiasm.
• Able to reflect on and appraise own performance and that of others.
• Ability to plan and prioritise own work and that of others with good organisational and time-management skills.
• Able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines.

Desirable

• Ability to influence and negotiate with a range of stakeholders to implement change in practice.
• Computer literate with SystmOne, SeeEHR.
• Able to resolve conflict and disagreement.
• Ability to manage change.
• Access to own transport.
• Ability to travel across the LSW area.

Knowledge

Essential

• Excellent knowledge of clinical pharmacy as it relates to acute and general medicine, and general surgery.
• Knowledge and understanding of antimicrobial stewardship.
• Understanding of non-medical prescribing, patient group directions and other alternatives to medical prescribing.
• Aware of current healthcare targets, NICE guidance and other national directives and the implications for implementation in primary and secondary care.

Desirable

• Highly specialized knowledge in related areas.