PCN Clinical Pharmacist

NHS; Sheffield; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job description

Working within your professional and clinical boundaries as part of an established multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in all areas of medicine related practice in a patient facing role.

Working in partnership with various organisations, to improve the quality and safety of care offered to our patients. Using independent prescribing to support better access to medicines, clinical medicines management, provide face to face structured medication reviews, tackling polypharmacy and manage long term conditions.

To manage medicines on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing including manage repeat prescriptions, acute prescription requests and antibiotic stewardship, while addressing both the public health and social care needs of patients across the primary care network practices.

The post-holder is expected to comply with Upper Don PCN organisations employment policies and procedures, as well as clinical and information governance policies and procedures, and any other policies and procedures necessary for the safe and effective discharge of the duties contained within this document.

Main duties of the job

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The focus of the post holders work will depend on the qualifications, skills and experience of the individual and the needs of the PCN Practice(s) which may develop over time and may include:

• Patient facing long term condition clinics
• Patient facing clinical medication review and support
• Telephone medicines support
• Patient facing care home/residential clinical medication reviews
• Patient facing domiciliary/home visits
• Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments
• Triage/differentiated/undifferentiated diagnosis
• Unplanned hospital admissions
• Management of medicines at discharge from hospital
• Repeat Prescribing
• Delivery of Quality Improvement programmes
• Information management
• Medicines safety and Risk Stratification
• Care Quality Commission
• Support Shared Care and Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary
• Public health
• Communication and collaborative working

About us

Upper Don PCN is a long established, friendly and stable network group of 3 practices who are aligned both geographically and patient focussed. The practices are Valley Medical Centre, Deepcar Medical Centre and Oughtibridge surgery based in the north of Sheffield on the edge of the Peak district with a linear position alongside the river Don. The patient list size is around £20k across the Network. We have good neighbourhood integration and a network team comprising Social prescribers, Physio, Mental Health Practitioner, Young persons social prescriber and the Pharmacy team of 3. All the network staff are supported by the clinicians and staff of the individual practices.

Job responsibilities

UPPER DON PRIMARY CARE NETWORK

12 months fixed term

Maternity Cover wef May 2025

JOB DESCRIPTION

1. JOB DETAILS

JOB TITLE: Primary Care Network Clinical Pharmacist

PARTNER PRACTICES: Valley Medical Centre, Deepcar Medical Centre, Oughtibridge Surgery

SALARY: Band 7 - Dependant on Experience

2. JOB PURPOSE

Working within your professional and clinical boundaries as part of an established multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in all areas of medicine related practice in a patient facing role.

Working in partnership with various organisations, to improve the quality and safety of care offered to our patients. Using independent prescribing to support better access to medicines, clinical medicines management, provide face to face structured medication reviews, tackling polypharmacy and manage long term conditions.

To manage medicines on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing including manage repeat prescriptions, acute prescription requests and antibiotic stewardship, while addressing both the public health and social care needs of patients across the primary care network practices.

The post-holder is expected to comply with Upper Don PCN organisations employment policies and procedures, as well as clinical and information governance policies and procedures, and any other policies and procedures necessary for the safe and effective discharge of the duties contained within this document.

3. MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The focus of the post holders work will depend on the qualifications, skills and experience of the individual and the needs of the PCN Practices which may develop over time and may include:

Patient facing long term condition clinics: See patients in multimorbidity clinics and in partnership with primary healthcare colleagues and implement improvements to patients medicines, including de-prescribing, managing own case load.

Patient facing clinical medication review and support: Undertake structured, clinical shared decision making medication reviews with patients and utilising your independent prescribing and order relevant monitoring with appropriate review.

Telephone medicines support: Provide telephone support for patients with queries and concerns about their medicines.

Patient facing care home-residential clinical medication reviews: Manage own caseload of care home residents providing a structured medication review. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

Patient facing domiciliary - home visits: Manage own caseload of vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of their medicines. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences. Identifying key areas of need for vulnerable patients and formulating care plans.

Management of common -minor-self-limiting ailments: Manage own caseload for patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence, signposting as appropriate.

Triage-differentiated-undifferentiated diagnosis: Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate clinician for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time.

Medicine information to practice staff and patients: Answer all medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams e.g. community pharmacy and patients with queries about medicines.

Unplanned hospital admissions: Implement practice searches to identify cohorts of patients most likely to be at risk of an unplanned admission/re-admission from medicines. Work with colleagues to manage medicines related risk for readmission and patient harm. Put in place changes to optimise prescribing of these medicines to high risk patient groups.

Management of medicines at discharge from hospital: Reconcile medicines following hospital discharge and upon admission to care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes manage these changes independently. Work with hospital and community colleagues to proactively manage patients at high risk of medicine related problems before they are discharged to ensure continuity of care.

Repeat prescribing: Produce if necessary and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy, ensuring promoting cost effective use of medicines and minimising unnecessary waste. Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process.

Delivery of Quality Improvement programmes: Support the delivery of local and national quality or cost effectiveness initiatives, identifying areas of prescribing for review. Incorporate the objectives of medicines optimisation, where requested and required, into general practice. Conduct clinical audits and quality improvement projects, presenting results and providing leadership on suggested changes. Support new services that are built around new medicines, or medicines within NICE guidance or a local care pathway. Contribute to the achievement of KPIs and PCN objectives.

Information management: Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision-making.

Medicines safety and Risk Stratification: Identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines following national and local drug safety alerts e.g. MHRA. Responsibility for management of risk stratification tools on behalf of the practice. Working with patients and the primary care team to minimise risks through medicines optimisation. Manage the process of implementing changes to medicines and guidance for practitioners. Provide leadership for antibiotic stewardship.

Care Quality Commission: Support the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved. Undertake risk assessment and ensure the management of medicines in the Practice complies with medicines legislation.

Support Shared Care and Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations where requested and required: Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy RAG list for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors - red drugs or subject to shared care - amber drugs. Liaise directly with hospital colleagues where prescribing needs to be returned to specialists.

Public health: Support public health campaigns.

Communication and collaborative working: The post-holder should recognise the importance of effective communication. It is vital the post holder works collaboratively with their PCN clinical director. Recognises the roles of other colleagues within the network and their role to patient care. Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders - including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS and private organisations e.g. ICB. Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleagues when necessary.

Leadership: Demonstrate understanding of the pharmacy role in governance and implements this appropriately within the workplace. Demonstrate understanding of, and contributes to, the workplace vision. Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service.

Management: Demonstrate understanding of the implications of local and national priorities and or service and manage self through these changes.

Education and Training: Provide education and training to the primary healthcare team and other health professionals e.g. nursing staff as required. Participate in a peer support network with fellow practice pharmacists.

Research and Evaluation: Demonstrates ability to critically evaluate and review literature, applying research evidence base into working place. Understanding of principles of research governance.

Health & Safety: The post-holder will assist in promoting and maintaining their own and others health, safety and security as defined in the employing organisations Health & Safety Policy.

Equality and Diversity: The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues.

Confidentiality: In the performance of the duties outlined in this job description, the post-holder may have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carers, Practice staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access to information relating to a Practice as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential. Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the practices policies and procedures, and the protection of personal and sensitive data.

Quality: The post-holder will strive to maintain quality and will:

• alert other team members to issues of quality and risk
• assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision
• contribute to the effectiveness of the team
• work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs
• effectively manage own time, workload and resources

Working Conditions: The post-holder may be required to travel independently between practice sites.

Person Specification

MOTIVATION AND SKILLS

• Ability to motivate self and other members of the team
• Drive and determination to promote and support the role of pharmacy staff in General Practice
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrates the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences
• Able to influence, motivate and persuade the audience to comply with the recommendations or agreed course of action where there may be significant barriers
• Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
• Able to work under pressure and to meet deadlines
• Produce timely and informative reports
• Work effectively independently and as a team member
• Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
• Ability to work flexibly
• Ability to recognize own limitations and act upon them appropriately;
• Willingness to learn new skills
• An understanding, acceptance and adherence to the need for strict confidentiality
• Is able to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine issues in core areas for long term conditions
• Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information

Experience

• Minimum of two years post-qualification experience
• Understanding of the work of General Practice
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing
• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence based healthcare including clinical audit

Qualifications

• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council
• Evidence of continuing professional development
• The post holder must have completed the CPPE primary care pathway
• Clinical diploma or other post graduate qualification
• Independent prescriber or working towards qualification

Other

• Immunisation status
• Understands the principles of equality and diversity
• Commitment to addressing health inequalities and patient empowerment
• UK driving licence
• Own Vehicle with business use insurance
• UK work permit (if required)

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.

Depending on experience Band 7 equivalent based on experience.