Medication Safety Officer

Job summary

Medication Safety Officer

Department: Pharmacy

Band 8a - £53,755 - £60,504 per annum

Hours: 37.5 per week, all MKUH roles will be considered for flexible working

Are you a Pharmacist passionate about helping people get the best from their medicines? Do you love helping people to self-care and look after themselves? Do you have the experience of running high quality, patient focused pharmacy services? If so, we need you!

Milton Keynes University Hospital Pharmacy has had significant investment over the last year in a fully refurbished Pharmacy department and a state of the art Aseptic Unit. In addition we have added a new outpatient dispensary right in the heart of our main entrance and OPD.

We have recently undertaken a change in the manner in which safety incidents are managed, using the PSIRF model. This focuses on learning from errors and we are looking for a clinical pharmacist with experience at band 7 or 8a level in hospital pharmacy or medication safety experience to join the Medicines Use Team.

Interview date: w/c 05.05.2025

Main duties of the job

You will bring a passion for health and wellbeing with a desire to support both patients and staff of the hospital to manage their health and improve from incidents. You will have an eye for service development, system wide learning and governance processes. You will need strong clinical skills and a good knowledge of hospital pharmacy practice to be able to liaise with prescribers and nurses to optimise the use of medicines and reduce the risk of medication safety incidents to ensure the best possible patient outcomes.

In return, you will be supported by the wider Pharmacy team and you will have the opportunity to develop your own skills and undertake your own professional development.

This is an opportunity to set up a service from scratch to offer the highest quality of care.

If you would like to discuss the role further, please do get in touch.

About us

Professional, scientific colleagues feel their roles positively impact patients and service users (NHS Staff Survey 2023).

"We care We communicate We collaborate We contribute"

You can expect a warm welcome at Milton Keynes University Hospital, our staff are friendly and welcoming. We listen to each other and work together to embed our Trust's values and behaviours. At MKUH we appreciate our staff and reward them with an outstanding benefits package including:

• Free on-site parking
• Free tea and coffee
• Great flexible working opportunities
• Discounted gym membership
• Lease car scheme
• Generous annual leave and pension scheme
• On site nursery (chargeable)
• Extensive staff health and well-being programme

Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in partnership with the University of Buckingham, is a University Teaching Hospital; we conduct research and teaching on site to improve the care of our patients. The hospital is undergoing significant investment, and we are proud to be rated good by the CQC. Visit our website to catch up on our latest news.

Date posted: 08 April 2025

Pay scheme: Agenda for change

Band: Band 8a

Salary: £53,755 to £60,504 a year per annum

Contract: Permanent

Working pattern: Full-time

Reference number: 430-CC27148A-A

Job locations: Pharmacy (Dept), Milton Keynes, MK6 5LD

Job description Job responsibilities

• To act as the Medication Safety Officer (MSO) and be responsible for the development, implementation, and evaluation of medicines safety initiatives across the organisation in line with relevant guidance.
• To be responsible for the development, implementation, and evaluation of a programme to promote learning from medication incidents within pharmacy and across the organisation.
• Ensuring comprehensive reporting on medication incidents to the relevant committee meetings and be responsible for driving actions to improve patient safety across the organisation.
• To lead on the governance of Controlled Drugs working with the Clinical Director of Pharmacy and the Controlled Drug Accountable Officer.
• To support the Medicine Use and Quality Manager to develop, deliver and evaluate the service they are responsible for in accordance with relevant standards and guidance.
• To facilitate the continuing professional development of all direct reports. To support the Medicine Use and Quality Manager to develop and deliver the medicines governance agenda including the preparation and maintenance of pharmacy-wide policies and procedures relating to the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines.
• To support patient centred medicines optimisation as an advanced pharmacy practitioner; and where service need require, to practice as a non-medical prescriber within an agreed scope of practice.

Please refer to the Job Description for further details.

We believe success lies in the diversity of our employees and are committed to promoting equality, encouraging diversity and embracing inclusion. We welcome applications from everyone interested in working for us.

MKUH is committed to equal opportunities and improving the working lives of our staff and as such we offer a range of flexible working practices.

We reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once a sufficient number of applications have been received.

MKUH uses identification scanning technology to confirm the authenticity of documents; all prospective employees of MKUH will have their original documents verified using this technology.

By applying for this role, you accept if successful, that information from your application will be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR) system. Your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which aims at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.

Upon commencing employment with the Trust, all employees (except Medical & Dental Staff on national terms and conditions) are subject to a probationary period lasting a period of six months with an option to extend for a further six months to a total of 12 months.

Person Specification

Qualifications and knowledge Essential

• B.Sc. / B.Pharm. / M.Pharm
• Registered with GPhC
• Post-graduate degree / Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy (Level 8) or equivalent experience
• Evidence of on-going CPD (in line with GPhC requirements)
• Evidence of a good understanding of medicines value and commissioning pathways and arrangements.

Desirable

• Independent prescribing qualification
• Member of RPS
• Formal teaching or mentoring training

Experience Essential

• Demonstrates a passion for Medication Safety
• Significant post registration experience in a hospital
• Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide patient care
• Experience of audit work and research
• Evidence of supporting multidisciplinary teams through change in clinical setting
• Experience of service development or change management
• An awareness of current national standards, guidelines and delivery issues relevant to patient and medication safety
• Experience of supervising, developing and appraising staff as well as giving feedback

Desirable

• Experience of writing evaluations or reviews of medicines and critically appraising evidence
• Experience of managing drug expenditure and understanding of budgetary mechanism
• Awareness of tools and techniques to support horizon scanning
• Experience of business case synthesis, financial planning and reporting

Skills Essential

• IT, Presentation skills and report writing
• Meets targets and identifies a vision for the delivery of pharmacy and medicine services to patients
• Good inter-personal skills, with the ability to liaise and influence senior managers and consultants
• Meets expected levels of practice as identified by others and identifies new areas of practice
• Understands local and national priorities in care and has the ability to reconcile these with local realities
• Demonstrable ability to manage time, people and resources to deliver outcomes
• Integrates research evidence and audit results into practice; documented experience of own research & audit
• Identifies and manages risk
• Demonstrates awareness of and commitment to governance and medicines safety agendas
• Demonstrates clinical knowledge, clinical reasoning and judgement; manages difficult and ambiguous problems
• Identifies own training needs, actively seeks training opportunities and maintains a portfolio of practice
• Works autonomously and can delegate authority appropriately
• Evaluates the quality of own work and can evaluate service quality
• An ability to prioritise a complex workload and work accurately under pressure

Personal and people development Essential

• Experience as a trainer
• Experience of supervising, developing and appraising staff as well as giving feedback

Communication Essential

• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to influence others
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
• Evidence of team working
• Evidence of effective and timely project delivery

Specific requirements Essential

• Able to perform the duties of the post with reasonable aids and adaptations
• Flexible, polite and courteous
• Dedicated professional attitude
• Able to take the initiative
• Common sense
• Ability and willingness to take responsibility for own actions and lead, when required, including when on call

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name: Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Address: Pharmacy (Dept), Milton Keynes, MK6 5LD

Employer's website

https://www.mkuh.nhs.uk/working-at-mkuh (Opens in a new tab)