Community Transformation Lead Pharmacist

Employer South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Croydon Community Mental Health Teams Town Croydon Salary £59,490 - £66,239 per annum Incl. of HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 29/04/2025 23:59

Community Transformation Lead Pharmacist

NHS AfC: Band 8a

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.

As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

The pharmacy department is recruiting a Community Transformation Lead pharmacist to become part of our friendly, patient centred team based in the Croydon Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs).

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced mental health pharmacist to join our dynamic, innovative team who are dedicated to improving our community services across the Trust, by leading the Croydon community pharmacist team. You will work with the site lead pharmacist for the Bethlem Royal Hospital which provide the dispensing services to Croydon, and also the Trust Community Transformation Pharmacist Team to ensure Trust-wide quality improvement projects and high-quality pharmacy services are implemented, delivered and continually improved for patients in our communities.

We are looking for someone with experience and a passion for this area of with natural leadership qualities. Your role will involve delivering outcomes for patients with a focus on preventing hospital admissions both for mental and physical ill health, improved medicines management and communication, particularly during transfer of care.

You must have excellent communication skills and be able to influence prescribing and medicines practice at a high level. You must be able to collect, analyse and report on data in a meaningful way to gain co-operation from stakeholders and present your work at Trust meetings in a confident, friendly and enthusiastic manner.

Main duties of the job

As a Community Transformation Lead Pharmacist, you will be working closely with senior and junior prescribers, care co-ordinators and other members of the MDT to ensure safe, effective and cost-effective use of medicines.

You will make recommendations for initiating, changing and stopping medications, including where appropriate, that clozapine and antipsychotic long acting injections are offered early in the treatment journey. You will consult with patients and their carers to ensure they receive expert advice on their medicines and are supported to manage their medicines.

You will work closely with teams, managers, and service directors to implement sustainable processes to ensure positive outcomes for patients and their carers.

We expect you to have a good knowledge of psychotropic medications and the ability to independently make appropriate decisions about treatment options. You should be able to communicate clinical information effectively and be able to influence prescribing practices in your boroughs. We expect that you would manage your own time and work schedule effectively.

As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage.

Working for our organisation

South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provides the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK. We are a world leading Trust in research, working closely with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. We are also part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre.

We are a large pharmacy department providing mental health pharmacy services to the Maudsley, Lambeth, Lewisham, and Bethlem Royal Hospitals and to psychiatric liaison, Home Treatment and community teams in the areas we serve in South London. We are the national medicines information centre for psychotropic medicines and have an established clinical trials unit. We provide training for undergraduate, pre-registration and post graduate pharmacists.

Career Progression pathways and development opportunities:

We are committed to get the very best out of our staff and support staff in their career aspirations. We have career pathways available, where you will be able to develop your skills and build on your experience to progress into other roles across different specialties. This role will help you in your development towards advanced clinical practice and consultant pharmacist potential. There are opportunities to become involved in research and quality improvement.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide leadership and management to the senior clinical pharmacists working in SLAM community mental health teams.

To provide an expert pharmacy service to SLAM community mental health teams.

To work with the borough MDTs to ensure effective and appropriate medicines use.

To lead on patient-centred quality improvement projects targeted at preventing hospital admissions and improved care in the community.

To lead on patient-centred quality improvement projects targeted at improving physical health outcomes for community mental health patients.

To record interventions, outcomes and relevant data to evaluate and ensure services deliver on outcomes and provide value for money.

To liaise with primary care, acute trusts, HTTs and wards, as necessary.

To provide a clinic for patients and carers to discuss medication.

To implement medicines optimisation programme in the teams.

To provide medicines related training to staff in community teams, as necessary.

To prescribe medicines to service users within competence and agreed management plans.

To record and analyse data for agreed outcome measures.

Person specification

Qualifications

• MPharm degree or equivalent
• Professional Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council with mandatory CPD
• Postgraduate certificate/diploma in mental health or pharmacy practice or equivalent
• Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society or Member / associate member of the College of Mental Health Pharmacists

Experience

• Relevant experience in patient-facing pharmacist roles
• Previous experience in providing clinical mental health services
• Relevant experience in NHS hospital pharmacy
• Previous experience in working in primary care networks or GP practices
• Management or supervisory experience

Skills

• Good written and verbal communication
• Good time management with ability to prioritise workload and meet deadlines
• Good computer skills, in particular for completing spreadsheets, graphs and reports
• Ability to collect and analyse outcome data for service evaluation purposes

Skills

• Empathy and understanding of medication issues facing people with mental health problems and their carers
• Able to communicate effectively with individuals from all agencies and levels, including patients, carers and the public

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice.
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment.
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity.

Please note:

• That all applications for this post will need to be made online.
• That you read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria.
• That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible.
• That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs.
• That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not been successful.
• That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees.
• That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process.
• That we are a smoke-free Trust.

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion, Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe.

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.

Name Loren Bailey Job title Principal Pharmacist, Bethlem Royal Hospital Email address loren.bailey@slam.nhs.uk Telephone number 02032284966