Pharmacy Technician (Primary Care)

Applications are invited for an experienced Pharmacy Technician certified in pharmaceutical science / pharmacy services and holding current registration to join our Primary Care Team in this exciting new role. This is a full-time post working 37.5 hours; however, part-time hours will be considered.

Main duties of the job

• You will support the GPs and Clinical Pharmacists by undertaking a patient facing / patient support role to ensure effective and safe medication use.
• You will carry out duties such as medicine optimisation tasks, supporting medication reviews, reconciling medications and processing prescription queries.
• You will support the process of external and internal audits regarding effective medication use and prescribing.
• You will assist in the processes relating to medicine safety tasks and cost effective prescribing.
• You will work closely with the administration team to ensure smooth, safe and effective workflows in the management of the repeat medication requests and associated medication reviews.

About us

We are a large and friendly Practice close to the centre of Burton caring for circa 17,000 patients from our two sites, Carlton Street Surgery and King Street Surgery. Our clinical team consists of 6 GP Partners, Salaried GPs, Clinical Pharmacists, Paramedics, Pharmacy Technicians, Practice Nurses, Health Care Assistants and Care Coordinators all supported by an experienced management and administrative team.

Job responsibilities

• Undertake a patient facing and patient supporting role to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients.
• Carry out medicines optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews, processing prescription queries and medicines reconciliation.
• Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.
• Support, as determined by the GP Lead and Clinical Pharmacist, medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, reviewing medication upon discharge / admittance.
• Provide specialist expertise, where competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information and help in tackling local health inequalities by identifying and referring patients to the Care Co-ordination Team.
• Take a central role in the clinical aspects of complex drugs and shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients.
• Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
• Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation, management incentive schemes and patient safety audits.
• Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g. use of antibiotics).
• Supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and locally commissioned enhanced services.
• 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 training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) to the administration team.
• Perform medicines improvement work to maximise safe, cost-effective best practice in prescribing under the supervision of the GP or Clinical Pharmacist.
• Liaise with clinicians and administrative staff to resolve medicine-related queries.
• Support the Clinical Pharmacists in Structured Medication Reviews (e.g. organise necessary monitoring tests before SMR).
• Support medicine reconciliation of patients whose care is transferred back into primary care in a timely and effective manner liaising with patients and other providers to ensure patients receive appropriate medication post discharge.
• Assist Clinical Pharmacists with any searches, data collection and medicine safety tasks.
• Implement changes to medication that result from CAS/MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local/national guidance.
• Work collaboratively with the Practice team.
• Develop relationships and work closely with community, hospital and MMT pharmacy colleagues and the wider health system.
• Participate in practice meetings, patient participation groups and other local meetings to improve engagement with the role of pharmacy technician.

Person Specification

• Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
• BTEC/NVQ level 3 or equivalent in pharmaceutical science/pharmacy services
• Evidence of continued professional development
• Educated to a good standard in English, Science and Maths.

Experience

• Minimum of 2 years post qualification
• Understanding of clinical knowledge and principles of evidence based healthcare
• Experience of dealing with a range of clinical conditions
• Experience of working within a primary care, community or hospital setting
• Awareness of systems to support management of patients in a primary care setting, delivering pharmaceutical input and support in the context of pathways of care and the business of the organisation(s)
• Experience of SystmOne
• Good clinical pharmacy knowledge including terminology

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.