Pharmacy Technician

We are looking for a Pharmacy Technician to join our established pharmacy team, working across 4 GP practices to develop and manage medicines optimisation. This will involve working on a range of projects to deliver the best possible prescribing outcomes across the PCN. If you like a variety of work, working in a multi-disciplinary team and are keen to develop in your role then this is the opportunity you have been looking for.

Main duties of the job:

• Supporting practices with medication reconciliation and repeat prescribing processes, working towards undertaking a patient interactive role to ensure effective medicines use through shared decision-making conversations with patients.
• Supporting the practices to achieve cost effective prescribing.
• Providing advice and support as part of the MDT; to promote the clinically appropriate use of medicines at practice level.
• Developing protocols to support long term condition management and safer prescribing.

About us:

Belper PCN is a formal association of 4 GP practices, based in and around Belper, that are working together to provide a selection of health services to our combined list of 46,500 patients. The two keystones of our approach to healthcare are teamwork and innovation. We believe that by working together and being open to new ideas we can both improve the lives of our patients and contribute to the sustainability and growth of the primary care sector. The PCN has a history of adopting new approaches in community care and already has an existing team of pharmacists and advanced care practitioners who have delivered real change and improvements to patient care.

Clinical Responsibilities:

• Undertaking patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making with patients.
• Carrying out medicine optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews, and medicines reconciliation.
• Supporting, as determined by the PCN, medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings and linking with local community pharmacists.
• Providing specialist expertise, where competent, to address both public health & social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, & help in tackling local health inequalities.
• Working with the Clinical Pharmacists to contribute to the review and development of repeat prescribing protocols / Standard Operating Procedures to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of repeat prescribing systems.
• Taking a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients.
• Supporting initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
• Assisting in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive schemes and patient safety/clinical audits.
• Supporting the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings.

Technical and Administrative responsibilities:

• Work with the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes, and reducing wastage.
• Supervise practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests, so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests.
• Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across PCNs, supporting practices with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic Prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems, and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines.
• Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
• Develop relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care, and mental health.
• Helping to keep all practice areas tidy and free from obstructions and clutter.
• Helping to maintain a positive, patient focussed culture.
• Helping to maintain a positive, supportive culture across the whole of the PCN team.
• Any other duties commensurate with this position.

Patient services:

• To provide medication optimisation services to patients via clinics in the practice, domiciliary visits and in residential and nursing homes, and to deliver pharmaceutical care plans that maximise cost-effective prescribing and improve the quality of patient care.
• To give advice on the appropriate use of medicines to PCN clinicians and patients.
• To help produce patient information leaflets and posters to improve medicines awareness when needed.
• To prepare evidence-based resources & information to support the medicine management team & other relevant health professionals in the implementation of rational cost-effective prescribing.
• To help plan, develop and support the introduction of new working processes within Belper PCN to optimise the quality of prescribing.

Person Specification:

• Essential: Current registration as a pharmacy technician with GPhC.
• Experience of working in primary care.

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. Applicants must have current UK professional registration.