Clinical Pharmacist

We have a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic Clinical Pharmacist to join our friendly practice. The practice is forward thinking and is supported by an excellent team. We have a strong team ethos and work collaboratively to provide outstanding patient care.

We hold practice meetings as well as daily informal discussions and monthly clinical meetings.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is a Clinical Pharmacist who acts within their professional boundaries, working alongside a team of pharmacists in general practice within the wider PCN.

They will improve patients' health outcomes and the efficiency of the primary care team by providing direct, accessible and timely medicines and expertise including face to face contact with patients.

The post holder will be an integral part of the general practice team, as well as part of a wider pharmacist network and multi-disciplinary team. This includes being a conduit of patient medicines information into and out of hospitals. They will work to optimise medication issues to improve patient care and safety, and support clinical staff in the management of patients.

As part of their employment, the post holder will achieve qualifications from an accredited training pathway, including independent prescribing, equipping the Clinical Pharmacist to be able to practise and prescribe safely and effectively in a primary care setting.

The supervision and mentorship network will be provided to support the Clinical Pharmacist.

About us

GMS practice

3 GP partner practice

Nursing team including 3 Practice Nurses and an HCA

List size of 9050

IT - EMIS Web, Docman, AccuRx

GP Training Practice from early 2025

High QOF Achieving

CQC rating is good throughout

Member of a successful PCN and Federation

35 minutes by train to London

Large Car Park

Job responsibilities

The Clinical Pharmacist in a general practice organisation has the following key responsibilities in relation to delivering health services:

1. Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using their expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas.
2. Be a prescriber, or completing training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the general practice team.
3. Be responsible for the care management of patients with chronic diseases and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially the elderly, people in care homes, those with multiple co-morbidities and people with learning disabilities or autism.
4. Provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients at the organisation and to help in tackling inequalities.
5. Provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation (including ensuring prescribers in the practice conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services.
6. Through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care.
7. Have a leadership role in supporting further integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage general practice workload.
8. Develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across the wider health and social care system.
9. Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols, clinical research with medicines, liaison with specialist pharmacists (including mental health and reduction of inappropriate antipsychotic use in people with learning difficulties), liaison with community pharmacists, and anticoagulation.
10. Be part of a professional clinical network and have access to appropriate clinical supervision.
11. To act as the point of contact for all medicine-related matters, establishing positive working relationships.
12. To consult patients within defined levels of competence and independently prescribe acute and repeat medication.
13. Provide support and oversight to practice repeat prescribing systems and medicines reconciliation. Support the implementation of MHRA and other safety alerts at practice level.
14. Work with practices to support CQC compliance.
15. To receive and resolve medicines queries from patients and other staff.
16. To provide medication review services for patients in the practice and during domiciliary visits to the local nursing home.
17. To manage a caseload of complex patients.
18. To manage a therapeutic drug monitoring system and the recall of patients taking high-risk drugs, i.e., anticoagulants, anticonvulsants and DMARDs, etc.
19. To deliver long-term condition clinics and home visits, particularly for patients with complicated medication regimes, and prescribe accordingly.
20. To provide pharmaceutical consultations to patients with long term conditions as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team.
21. To review medications for newly registered patients.
22. To improve patient and carer understanding of confidence in and compliance with their medication.
23. To maintain accurate clinical records in conjunction with extant legislation.
24. To encourage cost-effective prescribing throughout the organisation.
25. To implement and embed a robust repeat prescribing system.
26. To provide advice and answer medication-related queries from patients and staff.
27. To organise and oversee the organisation's medicines optimisation systems, including the repeat prescribing and medication review systems.
28. To improve the quality and effectiveness of prescribing through clinical audit and education, to improve performance against NICE standards and clinical and prescribing guidance.
29. To develop yourself and the role through participation in clinical supervision, training and service redesign activities.
30. To ensure appropriate supervision of safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs. To apply infection-control measures within the practice according to local and national guidelines.
31. To provide subject matter expertise on medication monitoring, implementing and embedding a system.
32. To support clinicians with the management of patients suffering from drug and alcohol dependencies.
33. To actively signpost patients to the correct healthcare professional.
34. To manage a caseload of complex patients and potential care institutions and to provide advice for the GP management of more complex patients or areas such as addictive behaviours, severe mental illness or end of life care.
35. To review the latest guidance, ensuring the organisation conforms to NICE, CQC etc.
36. To provide targeted support and proactive reviews for vulnerable, complex patients and those at risk of admission and re-admission to secondary care.
37. To handle prescription queries and requests directly, providing proactive leadership on medicines and prescribing systems to the organisation, patients and their carers.
38. To support in the delivery of enhanced services and other service requirements on behalf of the organisation.
39. To participate in the management of patient complaints when requested to do so, and participate in the identification of any necessary learning brought about through clinical incidents and near-miss events.
40. To undertake all mandatory training and induction programmes.
41. To contribute to and embrace the spectrum of clinical governance.
42. To attend a formal appraisal with your manager at least every 12 months. Once a performance/training objective has been set, progress will be reviewed on a regular basis so that new objectives can be agreed.
43. To contribute to public health campaigns (e.g., COVID-19 or flu clinics) through advice or direct care.
44. To maintain a clean, tidy, effective working area at all times.

In addition to the primary responsibilities, the Clinical Pharmacist will be requested to:

1. Support delivery of QOF, incentive schemes, QIPP and other quality or cost-effectiveness initiatives.
2. Agree and review prescribing formularies and protocols, and monitor compliance levels.
3. Improve the data quality of medicines records and linking to conditions.
4. Deliver training, mentoring and guidance to other clinicians and staff on medicine issues.
5. Working in partnership with pharmacists and clinicians at local hospitals, improve the safety and quality of prescribing after discharge from hospital admissions and attendance.
6. Provide leadership and support to prescription administrative/dispensary staff.
7. Develop a specialist area of interest.
8. Work with community pharmacists, hospital pharmacists and other stakeholders in the medicines supply chain to improve patient experience and manage incidents.
9. Support virtual and remote models of consultation and support, including e-consultations, remote medication review, and telehealth and telemedicine.
10. Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner.
11. Duties may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• GPhC registered pharmacist
• The Clinical Pharmacist is enrolled in, or has qualified from, an approved 18-month training pathway or equivalent that equips them to:
• a. Be able to practice and prescribe safely and effectively in a primary care setting (for example, the CPPE clinical pharmacist training pathways).
• Minor ailments certification.
• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Experience

• An appreciation of the nature of GPs and general practice.
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing.
• Experience and an awareness of common acute and chronic conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice.
• An appreciation of the new NHS landscape, including the relationships between individual practices, PCNs and the commissioners.
• Minimum of two years working as a pharmacist demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
• Experience in managing pharmacy services in primary care.
• In-depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare.
• Understanding of the mentorship process.

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.