Advanced Specialist Clinical Pharmacist – Breast Cancer | The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

We have an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated and experienced Advanced Specialist Breast Cancer Pharmacist (Band 8b) to lead and further develop our breast cancer pharmacy services. This is a senior leadership position within our established breast cancer clinical pharmacy team. The post holder will provide strategic and clinical leadership to the breast cancer pharmacy service, working closely with the multidisciplinary team to ensure delivery of high-quality, patient-centred care across both the main Christie site and our outreach and peripheral clinics.

You will be accountable for the safe, effective, and evidence-based use of systemic anti-cancer therapies (SACT) for patients with breast cancer. You will be joining a supportive and forward-thinking team with a reputation for pioneering work in service delivery for patients with breast cancer. If you are enthusiastic and keen to shape the future of breast cancer pharmacy at one of the UK’s most advanced cancer centres we would like to hear from you.

• To lead and manage the specialist breast cancer pharmacy service, ensuring clinical excellence, service alignment with Trust and national standards, and continuous improvement through defined performance measures.
• To provide advanced clinical pharmacy expertise, including independent prescribing, multidisciplinary collaboration, and delivery of patient-centred, evidence-based care for breast cancer patients.
• To oversee medicines optimisation and governance, ensuring safe, effective, and cost-efficient use of cancer medicines through robust protocols, incident management, and regulatory compliance.
• To manage and develop staff, providing leadership, mentorship, appraisals.
• To drive innovation and service development, leading initiatives such as pharmacist-led clinics, digital prescribing, and pathway optimisation to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities.
• To contribute to education, research, and financial stewardship, delivering teaching, audits, and clinical research while managing budgets, forecasting drug expenditure, and supporting sustainability goals.

Although the pharmacy service is based at The Christie Hospital main site, postholders may be required to work at any location across the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Network. The Trust has a flexible working policy and, subject to service commitments, it may also be possible to support an element of working from home.

The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.

• To lead, develop and manage the specialist breast cancer pharmacy service within the Trust, ensuring alignment with departmental, Trust, and national standards.
• To provide highly specialist clinical pharmacy advice to other clinicians in multidisciplinary team meetings, outpatient clinics and on an ad hoc basis regarding the management of inpatients undergoing treatment for breast cancer including the management of clinical uncertainty by critically appraising the evidence-base and applying it to novel situations and reaching appropriate decisions in complex, challenging or sensitive environments where there are competing priorities and/or an absence of reliable evidence and in situations where other professionals may challenge the advice given.
• To act as an independent prescriber for appropriate breast cancer patients, managing own caseload and undertaking pharmacist-led clinics. This will include the management of patients with complex pharmaceutical care issues and distressed patients in emotive circumstances.
• To record personally generated information in the patient’s Electronic Case Notes and Electronic Prescribing systems.
• To support patient-centred care by providing expert medicines advice, promoting adherence, and facilitating shared decision-making including verbal and written communication of highly complex drug or medicine related information to patients and relatives or carers including patients who may have language difficulties, physical or mental disabilities.
• To identify service improvement opportunities to meet the changing requirements of both the patient population and the Trust and take a pro‑active role in the development and implementation of these initiatives both within the Trust and with external agencies across the network where applicable e.g.: Greater Manchester Breast pathway board, NorthWest Genomics Laboratory Hub.
• To drive innovation in the treatment of patients with breast cancer, including pharmacist‑led clinics, supportive care interventions, and digital prescribing systems (EPMA).
• To establish a series of performance measures (discussed and agreed with the Consultant breast cancer pharmacist, and Service Manager).