Advanced Clinical Pharmacist - Perinatal Service (maternity cover)

Advanced Clinical Pharmacist - Perinatal Service (maternity cover)

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust

An exciting maternity cover opportunity has arisen for an experienced clinical pharmacist with a specialist interest in perinatal mental health. This temporary role offers the chance to work within the Mother and Baby Perinatal Inpatient Unit as well as the Community Perinatal Mental Health Team.

The successful candidate will be an integral part of the multidisciplinary team, providing care and support for mothers experiencing mental health challenges during pregnancy and up to one year postpartum, across both inpatient and community settings.

Once appointed you will form part of the multidisciplinary team on Ribblemere, a contemporary designed 8 bedded Mother and Baby Unit situated on the grounds of Chorley and South Ribble District General Hospital. The unit cares for and supports Mothers either during pregnancy or the postnatal period to recover from episodes of mental ill health, whilst in an environment that supports mothers to nurture their relationship with their baby.

Main duties of the job

The post will also provide a clinical pharmacy service for women across the Central and West community perinatal teams in the Trust. You will work closely with 2 other community perinatal pharmacists within the Trust. The Community Perinatal service launched in January 2019 and offers psychiatric and psychological assessments and care for women with complex or severe mental health problems during pregnancy and up to one year after giving birth. The service also provides pre-conception advice for women with a current or past severe mental illness who are planning a pregnancy.

You will also ensure safe and effective medicines management processes within the service. This will include compliance with regulatory medicines management standards and implementation of medicines safety alerts.

You will have current registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council, a postgraduate qualification or equivalent experience, and significant post registration experience in a mental health setting. A qualification as a non-medical prescriber would be desirable but not essential.

The post would be based at the Mother and Baby Unit in Chorley, where the hub for the Community Perinatal Community Team is also located; however, due to the location of the other Community Perinatal Mental Health teams and the potential to undertake home visits, an ability and willingness to travel is required.

About us

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust provides a range of services including secondary mental health care across this area. Specialist provision comprises inpatient child and adolescent mental health services, perinatal mental health and forensic services including low and medium secure care.

The Trust also provides a range of physical health and well-being services in the community alongside a range of partners in the Lancashire, Cumbria and Sefton area.

Lancashire & South Cumbria Foundation Trust encourages flexible working; we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours, flexi-time, and career breaks. We encourage applicants to state clearly on their application forms this request and discuss these options at interview.

For more information please visit our website via Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS FT.

Job responsibilities

As a senior member of the pharmacy team, you will also support Trust initiatives such as the quality strategy and innovation program.

This post presents a great opportunity for an enthusiastic and experienced pharmacist motivated by the desire to improve patient care to establish this key position within the MDT. The role demands an organised, flexible individual with excellent communication and interpersonal skills and an ability to work on their own initiative.

The post will provide an opportunity for the following:

1. Non-medical prescribing role as needed
2. Pharmaceutical care planning and clinical review of prescriptions
3. Involvement of women and their significant others in decisions about their medicines to optimise treatment, support adherence and improve outcomes
4. Provision of specialist pharmaceutical advice to the multi-disciplinary team
5. Provision of clinical supervision and professional leadership to other members of the team
6. Involvement in service redesign and development to ensure effective medicines management support and strategies
7. Provide expert medicines management advice and support and ensure appropriate governance arrangements are in place for the management of medicines, including the monitoring of prescribing and medicines use
8. Attendance at strategic network meetings e.g. locality governance meetings
9. Actively working to contribute to and deliver the Trust medicines optimisation strategy

Please see attached the Job Description and Person Specification for more information about this role.

Person Specification

Experience

• Previous experience working in mental health

Skills

• Organisational skills

Qualifications

• Registration with General Pharmaceutical Council Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
• Postgraduate clinical pharmacy diploma or equivalent including MA/MSc or equivalent experience

Knowledge

• Good clinical pharmacy knowledge
• Awareness of current issues relevant to clinical pharmacy practice in mental health

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.

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust

£53,755 to £60,504 a year, pro rata