Clinical Pharmacist in Preston

Job summary

Post: Clinical Pharmacist for Compass Medical Practice

Pay: £24.45 - £27.98 depending on experience

Hours: 8 hours/week can be worked over a period between Monday - Friday 08:00 - 18:30

Accountable to: Clinical Head of Primary and Community Care

Reports to: Clinical Manager Inclusion Health

Base: Newfield House, Vicarage Lane, Blackpool, FY4 4EW

As FCMS we provide several services across the Fylde Coast, Morecambe Bay, Rossendale, West Lancashire and Doncaster as well as diagnostic services across the country. These include GP Out of Hours services, Urgent Treatment Centres, and a range of other Primary Care Services including Enhanced Access (Fylde Coast) and Special Allocation Services (Lancashire / Cumbria/Parts of Cheshire and Merseyside).

For this role, the Clinical Pharmacist would work within our Special Allocation Service which is a GP practice for difficult to doctor patients and those with complex needs. We are seeking a proactive and patient-focused Clinical Pharmacist to join Compass Medical Practice as a valued member of our multidisciplinary clinical team. The post holder will play a key role in optimising medicine use, improving patient safety, and supporting high-quality prescribing across the practice. This includes undertaking structured medication reviews, supporting deprescribing, working closely with the prescription clerk and contributing to prescribing audits and quality improvement work.

Main duties of the job

• Conduct structured medication reviews with a focus on patients with complex needs, polypharmacy, frailty and long-term conditions
• Lead and support deprescribing where appropriate, in line with national and local guidance
• Optimise medicines to improve patient outcome, safety and adherence
• Provide clinical advice to GPs, ACPS, Nurses and other members of the Clinical Team regarding prescribing and medicines management
• Respond to medicines related queries from patients and clinicians
• Develop and encourage positive working relationships with local GP Practices, housing, social work, voluntary services, drug and alcohol, mental health, dental, secondary care and other appropriate services
• Keep contemporaneous, accurate and legible records of all patient contacts and contribute to electronic data recording and audit as directed by the service

Prescribing & Medicines Management

• Work closely with the prescription clerk to ensure safe, accurate, and timely processing of prescriptions
• Support repeat prescribing systems and processes
• Identify and resolve prescribing issues, including high risk medications
• Contribute to medicines reconciliation when required

Audit, Quality & Governance

• Undertake and contribute to prescribing audits and quality improvement projects
• Support achievement of QoF and other contractual requirements related to medicines optimisation
• Ensure prescribing aligns with local formularies, NICE guidance and best practice
• The organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. You will be expected to fulfil your mandatory safeguarding training at the level applicable to this role
• Identify any potential safeguarding issues, make appropriate referrals and ensure the safeguarding champion for Inclusion Health is aware

Professional

• Ensure full accreditation and requirements of practice to include full registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
• Demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning and audit to ensure evidence-based best practice. Attend training, professional meetings and organised events
• Maintain high standards of cleanliness and hygiene at all times. Remain aware of and compliant with all Infection Prevention and Control guidelines
• Work within the boundaries of your relevant professional Code of Conduct

Teamworking & Service Development

• Act as a valuable and collaborative member of the clinical team
• Participate in multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings where appropriate
• Support education and training of staff in relation to medicines and prescribing
• Contribute to the ongoing development of pharmacy services within the practice

Communication and working relationships

• Communicates effectively with other team members
• Communicates effectively with patients and carers
• Communicates effectively with other healthcare professionals
• Take all appropriate steps to minimise conflict

Most challenging part of the role

• Ability to work under pressure in an ever-changing, challenging specialist environment whilst maintaining excellent standards of patient care
• Dealing with difficult situations and people by demonstrating and exercising critical thinking skills when faced with incomplete or lack of information or complexity
• Manage patient and public expectations of the service within set national targets and time constraints
• Manage effective change and development within clinical areas, maintaining highly specialised knowledge and competences

Any other duties considered relevant to the post and commensurate with the post holder's grade and as agreed by their line manager. The main duties and responsibilities above are not exhaustive and should merely be regarded as a guide. These are subject to periodic review and may be amended to meet the changing needs of the service. The job holder will be expected to participate in this process, and the company would aim to reach agreement to changes.

Our key expectations are:

• Self-awareness
• Living authentically
• Adaptability - Being ready to adjust depending on the situation
• Openness - What you see is what you get
• Positivity with a real sense of being able to strive for the impossible
• Generosity of spirit - Everyday should be an opportunity to act with kindness
• Ability to have fun - Taking the role seriously, whilst being yourself

Our Why:

To nurture an environment of inspiration, innovation and disruption so that people in our world receive exceptional healthcare for this generation, and the next.

Values:

Our organisational culture is very important to us, so it is vital that the successful candidate lives and breathes complimentary values and behaviours. Our behaviours should be in line with our values which form part of our Company DNA:

• Fun: People rarely succeed unless they are having fun. Happiness is healthy!
• Awesome: We aren't here to be average, we're here to be awesome!
• Humble: We're here to make a difference to the lives of others, NOT to see how important we can become
• Brave: We challenge the norm. We have the courage to get the difficult jobs done
• Oompf: We have natural oompf! It's infectious!
• Go-getting: We are intuitive to changing needs and respond quickly which we do with energy, ideas, and positivity

Come and be a part of our amazing team!

We offer NHS Pension, Cycle to Work Scheme, Career Development Opportunities, Attendance Bonus, Staff Benefit Scheme, Free Tea & Coffee, Eye Care Contributions.

Disability Confident Employer: As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exemption 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. This will require three forms of valid ID to be produced and verified. The onboarding process is also subject to an Occupational Health check, suitable professional references and eligibility to work in the UK (with the requirement to provide relevant documentation as evidence). For Driver positions, you will also be required to undertake a Driver check.

Person Specification

Experience - Essential

• Experience working in primary care, general practice
• Strong knowledge and understanding of medicine optimisation, polypharmacy and deprescribing
• Experience undertaking structured medication reviews

Desirable

• Experience of prescribing audits and quality improvement work

Qualifications - Essential

• Registered Pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
• Relevant professional Qualification
• Experience of working independently as an unsupervised practitioner in the primary care
• Independent Prescriber

Desirable

• Experience in Primary Care
• Experience working in Inclusion Health / Multiple disadvantage

Personal Qualities - Essential

• Demonstrate the ability to work in highly demanding environments
• Evidence of diplomacy and negotiation skills
• Able to demonstrate imaginative and effective use of resources
• Able to articulate personal development needs
• Implementation of audit/research recommendations
• Excellent communication and leadership skills
• Competent in use of IT packages such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
• Knowledge of current clinical and professional issues

Desirable

• Experience of working with clinical IT systems including EMIS, Patchs, Docman, Ardens
• Willing to try new IT systems in the future for consultations

Specific Job Requirements - Essential

• Remaining calm under pressure
• Able to manage varying workloads
• High emotional intelligence

Other - Essential

• Self-motivated
• Authentic
• Professional Manner
• Trauma Informed Practice

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.