Clinical Pharmacist in Uxbridge

The Clinical Pharmacist will play a key role within the GP surgery, working as part of a multidisciplinary team to optimise medicines use, improve patient outcomes, and support safe, effective prescribing. The postholder will provide expert clinical advice on medicines, undertake structured medication reviews, and contribute to the management of long-term conditions. They will be involved in reviewing complex polypharmacy, addressing medication-related queries, and ensuring high-quality, evidence-based prescribing. The role includes responsibility for reducing medicines-related harm and supporting patients to get the best from their treatment through personalised care and shared decision-making. The pharmacist will also contribute to wider practice priorities such as QOF, IIF, medicines safety audits, and implementation of NICE guidance. They will work closely with the pharmacy team, community pharmacy, and secondary care to ensure seamless medicines management across the patient pathway. This role is essential in enhancing access to clinical support, reducing GP workload, and delivering high quality, patient-centred care within the surgery.

Main duties of the job

• Clinical pharmacists work within multidisciplinary teams in patient-facing roles, using their expert medicines knowledge to assess and treat patients in defined disease areas.
• They are prescribers or training to prescribe, supporting general practice by managing patients with chronic conditions and conducting clinical medication reviews, particularly for those with complex polypharmacy, frailty, COPD, CVD and diabetes.
• They provide specialist expertise in medicines use, support public health and social care needs, and help reduce health inequalities.
• They lead on person-centred medicines optimisation, antimicrobial stewardship, and quality improvement, contributing to QOF and enhanced services.
• Through structured medication reviews, they help patients use medicines effectively, reduce waste and promote self-care.
• Clinical pharmacists also support integration between general practice and wider healthcare teams, improving outcomes, access and workload management.
• They build strong relationships across PCNs and the wider health and social care system.
• They play a central role in shared care protocols, medicines related research, liaison with specialist and community pharmacists.
• You will be expected to work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.

About us

We are a practice based in leafy Buckinghamshire with approximately 11,000 patients. We have a great team which includes 2 GP Partners, 1 salaried and 3 locum GPs. They are supported by 3 Physicians Associates, 1 Advanced Nurse Practitioner, 1 First Contact Practitioner, 4 Practice Nurses and 2 Healthcare assistants. We also have 3 in-house pharmacists, 1 Social Prescriber and an admin team of 12 staff members.

Job responsibilities

• See where appropriate patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required e.g. COPD, asthma.
• 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.
• Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for quality improvement.
• Patient facing clinical medication review.
• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
• Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review.
• Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
• Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments.
• Manage caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.
• Signpost to community pharmacy and refer to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate.
• Provide patient facing clinics for those with medicines queries.
• Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams e.g. community pharmacy and patients with queries about medicines.
• Provide follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
• Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews.
• Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.
• Reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge.
• Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patients.
• Ensure patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time.
• Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy.
• Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review.
• Identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared practice computer searches.
• Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components.
• Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision-making.
• Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the Accountable Clinical Director (ACD) for the network, feedback results and implement changes in conjunction with the ACD.
• Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
• Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy's RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs).
• Assist practices in seeing and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practice's computer system.
• Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
• Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
• Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
• Support public health campaigns. Provide specialist knowledge.

Person Specification

• Professional approach to work demonstrating excellent interactive patient skills.
• Guided by professional code, accountable and responsible for own professional actions.
• Ability to gain the confidence and credibility of a range of professionals.
• Able to work under pressure and prioritise tasks to ensure urgent work is completed on time.
• Able to engage rapidly with existing stakeholder and networks.
• Builds credibility (personal and organisational) and rapport quickly.
• Able to communicate effectively and engage with individuals from other agencies, including patients and the public.
• Ability to travel between sites in a timely manner if required.

Experience

• Capacity to be innovative and develop the role of a practice pharmacist.
• Effective interpersonal, communication (both written and oral) presentation and influencing skills.
• Ability to work with a range of clinical and non-clinical personnel as part of a team.
• Ability to communicate medicines and service-related information to decision makers at all levels and have advice challenged.
• Ability to work independently and effectively with a high degree of motivation for long periods.
• Ability to prioritise and work to deadlines, often with frequent interruptions and urgent requests.
• Ability to motivate people and facilitate change.
• Ability to define, collate, analyse and interpret data.
• Able to utilise databases and information technology, including word processing, spreadsheets and presentation packages effectively.
• Ability to communicate information to patients and carers in an appropriate manner, using well developed empathy skills.
• Ability to deal with occasionally distressing or emotional circumstances, including contact with terminally ill patients and their carers or relatives.
• Accepts responsibility for own work with freedom to take action based on own interpretation of broad clinical/professional policies.
• Knowledge of issues regarding the protection of vulnerable adults and children, frail elderly and those with dementia.
• Knowledge of medicines management issues across primary, acute and domiciliary care settings including strategies for the improvement of prescribing.
• Understanding and appreciation of National and local policies which impinge on primary care prescribing.
• Understanding of the current issues facing primary care team.
• Understanding of the principles of clinical governance and how these apply in the broader arena.
• Understanding of personal health and safety responsibilities.
• An understanding of prescribing budgets and financial information.

Qualifications

• Masters Degree in Pharmacy (MPharm) or equivalent.
• Registered with GPhC.
• Specialist knowledge through a Postgraduate Diploma and qualifications (e.g. clinical, community, therapeutics) or equivalent.
• Evidence of recent and relevant Continuing Professional Development.
• Independent prescriber status or a commitment to undertake the course.
• At least 2 years post registration experience in a hospital, community or general practice setting.
• Experience of undertaking medication or medicine use reviews, and patient counselling.
• Experience of working with clinicians and multidisciplinary/multi-agency work.
• Experience of facilitating change to improve clinical practice.
• Experience of delivering training sessions to varied groups.
• Experience in undertaking clinical audit.

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.