North Southwark PCN Clinical Pharmacist in London

The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will act within their professional boundaries and work as part of the team to provide a safe, efficient and high-quality clinical pharmacy service to the North Southwark population. You will work as part of a neighbourhood multi-disciplinary team (MDT) in both patient-facing and non-patient facing roles, delivering integrated services. You will be involved in the provision of primary care medicines management and optimisation services across neighbourhoods. You will be supported to take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within a local Neighbourhood Team or practice and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy.

You will support the development of medicine-related protocols and guidelines to support medicines use within primary care; provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement, and support delivery of both local and national medicines related NHS contracts. You will ensure that the Neighbourhood integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage workload. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within general practice.

Main duties of the job

• Promoting safe and effective use of medicines across the primary care landscape.
• Delivery of structured medication reviews to those identified as being at highest need with the PCN population.
• To support the quality improvement and inequality agenda.
• Reducing and managing risk and harm from medicines.
• Reducing wastage and optimising medicines use across the system.
• Delivery of other medicines related specifications as directed by the PCN contract.

The role requires a commitment to patient centred care and will involve undertaking complex medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and reviews, assessing medicine support needs, health promotion activities, as well as providing information and advice. You will be required to work with a wide range of stakeholders. It is important that the postholder:

• Demonstrates ability to be positive, flexible and most importantly, work as a member of an integrated team.
• Recognises the roles of other colleagues to patient care and liaises with other stakeholders for the collective benefit of patients.
• Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary.
• Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders in the local care network to build sustainable relationships.

About us

Fourteen practices in north Southwark stand together as Quay Health Solutions (QHS) Community Interest Company jointly delivering services that improve outcomes for over 200,000 registered patients. From July 2019 member practices have come together as North Southwark Primary Care Network (PCN) providing the building blocks for at scale service delivery and wider system integration through three Neighbourhoods. These are the delivery units for integrated place-based care, bringing together local health and care organisations (including social care, the voluntary sector and patient groups) to work to deliver more joined up, patient-centred services.

As part of the NHS 10-year Plan, QHS has joined with the South Southwark GP Federation, Improving Health Limited (IHL) to partner with Guys & St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) to deliver the Southwark integrator function. Neighbourhood health service integrators have been tasked with establishing the foundations and building the relationships needed to deliver proactive, integrated and equitable neighbourhood health services shaped by local communities. Integrators will provide the vital infrastructure, connections and coordination needed to turn policy into practice and bring care closer to home.

Since 2017 QHS member practices have pooled resources to develop a team of Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice as part of the NHS England program to deliver the full range of clinical pharmacy services to the population.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Essential: Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent).
• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council.
• Desirable: Specialist knowledge acquired through post-graduate diploma Level, Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway or equivalent training/experience.
• Independent prescriber or working towards/intent of gaining independent prescribing qualification.
• A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Other requirements

• Essential: Self-motivated, adaptable and flexible approach to delivering high quality patient care.
• Current DBS Safeguarding adult and children level three.
• Full immunisation status.
• Basic life support training.
• Desirable: Information Governance toolkit completion.

Experience

• Essential: Knowledge of GPs and general practice services.
• Experience of working in a GP practice or Primary Care Network for 3+ years.
• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare.
• Knowledge of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing.
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences.
• Ability to use work-based IT programmes to deliver high quality care.
• Ability to obtain and analyse complex technical information.
• Able to prioritise when problem solving and identify deviations from the normal pattern.
• Able to recognise limitations and refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate.
• Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Able to produce timely and informative reports.
• Work effectively independently and as a team member.
• Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration.