Clinical Pharmacist - North Oxfordshire Rural Alliance (NORA) PCN in Banbury

The purpose of this role is to provide a comprehensive Clinical pharmacist service to patients of North Oxfordshire Rural Alliance Primary Care Network (PCN). This role is pivotal to improving quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver an excellent service within general practice. Please note, the base surgery and employer will be Bloxham and Hook Norton Surgery.

Main duties of the job:

• The post holder is a Pharmacist, who acts within their professional boundaries, and will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role.
• In this role they will be supported by a Senior Clinical Pharmacist (SCP) who will develop and mentor them.
• The post holder will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within the Practice(s) and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy, especially for older people, people in residential care homes, hospital discharges and those with multiple co-morbidities.
• The post holder will assist the SCP and team to provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation, quality improvement and manage some aspects of the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services.
• The post holder will work with the SCP and team to ensure that the practice integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage workload.
• The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within general practice.
• The post holder will be supported to develop their role to become an independent prescriber on completion of the CPPE pathway.

About us:

Come and join our incredibly friendly PCN, nestled near to and within the Cotswold countryside in an area of outstanding natural beauty. NORA PCN consists of five rural surgeries. Collectively, we serve a population of approximately 51,000 patients. We have diverse patient population with a high proportion of elderly patients. We have a fantastic PCN Clinical Pharmacy team, one of the largest in Oxfordshire - which includes a Senior Clinical Pharmacist, five Clinical Pharmacists and a PCN Pharmacy technician. The team have monthly group teaching and discussion sessions together, as well as regular social events.

Job responsibilities:

• Medicine information to PCN, practice staff and patients.
• Answer medicine related enquiries from PCN, GPs & practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggest and recommend solutions. Provide follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests.
• Review the ongoing need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation).
• Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice as appropriate and with safety in mind during the pandemic.
• Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• Manage own caseload of care home residents. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests.
• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
• Manage own caseload of vulnerable house-bound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines.
• Implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and ordering of monitoring tests when appropriately qualified to do so.
• Assist with design, development and implementation of computer searches to identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines across the PCN.
• Assist the SCP with the management of risk stratification tools on behalf of the PCN.
• Work with patients, SCP and CPs across the PCN and primary care teams to minimise risks through medicines optimisation.
• To assist SCP and CP team to analyse, interpret and present medicines and risks to support decision-making across the PCN.
• Work with the SCP and CP team to identify and provide support on areas of prescribing and medicines optimisation, including QOF and QI requirements.
• Conduct appropriate clinical audits and projects or work with colleagues such as SCP, CPs, GP registrars, and practice managers across the PCN etc.
• Assist SCP and CP team provide leadership to the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
• Assist with monitoring practice prescribing against the local health economy's RAG list for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs).
• Work with SCP and CP team to suggest and develop computer decision support tools to help remind prescribers about the agreed formulary choice and local recommendations.
• Provide updates on PCN intranet on important prescribing messages to improve prescribers knowledge and work with the team to develop and implement other techniques known to influence implementation of evidence such as audit and feedback.
• Work with SCP to ensure that PCN Pharmacy Technicians and Foundation Trainees receive appropriate supervision, mentoring, appraisal and access to relevant training & development programmes.
• Assist SCP and CP team provide education and training to primary healthcare teams across the PCN on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
• Assist with providing training to visiting medical, nursing, pharmacy and other healthcare students where appropriate.
• Devise and implement practice searches to identify cohorts of patients most likely to be at risk of an unplanned admission and readmissions from medicines.
• Work in partnership with hospital colleagues (e.g. care of the elderly doctors and clinical pharmacists) to proactively manage patients at high risk of medicine related problems before they are discharged to ensure continuity of care.
• Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology test results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.

Person Specification:

Experience:

• Has experience and an awareness of common acute and long term conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice.
• Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate.
• Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
• Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidelines.
• Demonstrates ability to work as a member of a team both within the PCN CP team and the general practice team.
• Actively work toward developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the PCN, practice and locality.

Qualifications:

• Completion of an undergraduate degree in pharmacy and registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council.
• Is already enrolled on/agrees to undertake the CPPE pathway for CPs, this is a mandatory part of the terms and conditions of employment with the PCN.
• May hold or be working towards an independent prescribing qualification.

Leadership:

• Is prepared to work with the SCP and CP team to develop the following: Demonstrate understanding of the pharmacy role in governance and is able to implement this appropriately within the workplace.
• Engage with Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) and involves PPGs in development of the role and practices.

Management:

• Is prepared to work with the SCP and CP team to develop the following: Demonstrate understanding of the implications of national priorities for the team and/or service.
• Demonstrate ability to identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol.

Education Training and Development:

• Demonstrate ability to conduct teaching and assessment effectively according to a learning plan with supervision from more experienced colleague.
• Participate in the delivery of formal education programmes.

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.