Clinical Pharmacist

Elmtree Surgery is seeking an accomplished and enthusiastic Independent Prescriber Clinical Pharmacist to join its friendly, forward thinking, and well established practice. The successful postholder will play a key role in supporting the delivery of services for patients with new and long term health conditions, contributing to high quality, patient centred care across the practice. The post is fulltime, working 37.5 hours across five days per week. If you are an independent prescriber who is passionate about making a positive impact on patient care and thrive in a dynamic primary care environment, we encourage you to apply.

Main duties of the job

• The successful candidate will have responsibilities that include overseeing the repeat prescribing process within the practice, managing a cohort of patients who may have medication queries or require medication reviews, and taking the lead in designing and delivering a service specifically tailored to their needs.
• Conduct review clinics for patients with chronic diseases such as Asthma, COPD, Pre‑Diabetes, Diabetes, Hypertension, and Heart Failure. These clinics may be conducted face‑to‑face, through telephone consultations, or via video calls.
• Ensure safe prescribing practices, monitoring higher risk drugs, managing long‑term conditions, and identifying potential missed diagnoses in accordance with CQC standards.

About us

Elmtrees surgery is part of Northolt, Greenford and Perivale PCN, one of the well‑established networks, comprising of 11 general practices that work collaboratively to improve patient outcomes and deliver excellent health‑care services. The network has fostered strong relationships among its staff members, creating a supportive and collaborative working environment. Elmtrees surgery is committed to nurturing the professional growth and well‑being of their employees. They provide a supportive infrastructure, access to training opportunities, and a culture that promotes teamwork and mutual support.

Job responsibilities

• Design, develop and implement computer searches to identify cohorts of patients with chronic disease who need review and medicines optimisation.
• Manage own case‑load and do the necessary checks for QOF and Ealing Standard, entering the data correctly on the computer system.
• Implement improvements to the patients medication and prescribing independently where necessary.
• Manage patients holistically, reviewing co‑morbidities in the same appointment and updating QOF and Ealing Standard as appropriate.
• Undertake structured medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests.
• Provide telephone support for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines and deliver medicines reconciliation from secondary care recommendations.
• Request and manage the results for the cohort of patients under your care in a safe and timely way.
• Identify and provide leadership on areas of prescribing requiring improvement. Conduct own audits and improvement projects and work with colleagues.
• Present results and provide leadership on suggested change. Demonstrate continuous QI activity focused upon prescribing safety as specified in the QOF guidance.
• Provide leadership to the practice manager and GPs to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved as part of the regulatory role of this position.
• Attend MDT, Network, Practice, ICB and Federation meetings as required.
• Foster and maintain good relationships between, within and outside the Practices involved in the network.
• Devise and manage population and public health campaigns to run within the network if required.
• Answer all medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff and patients with queries about medicines.
• Understand that this is a new and evolving role which may change with the needs of the Network.
• Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
• Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economies RAG list for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors or subject to shared care.
• Liaise directly with hospital colleagues where prescribing needs to be returned to specialists.
• Assist practices in setting and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer system.
• Provide newsletters on important prescribing messages to improve prescribers knowledge.

Person Specification

• CPPE Qualification or working towards it.
• Excellent communication and consultation skills both verbal (face to face and phone) and written.
• Places patients and relatives at the center of all decisions regarding their care.
• Can deliver clinics within appropriate time frames.
• Develops and uses skills to take an appropriate history and recognises common presentations and red flags treating or referring appropriately.
• Demonstrates problem solving skills and conveys complex and sensitive information in an appropriate way for target audience.
• Expert level understanding of therapeutics and clinical pharmacy.
• Minimum of 2 years post graduate experience in pharmacy as demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
• Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision.
• Works as part of a team and promotes utilisation of skill mix.
• Engages with pharmacy professional bodies.

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 to check for any previous criminal convictions.