Director of Prescribing in Canary Wharf

Director of Prescribing

• Salary: £95,000 – £120,000
• Reports to: Chief Medical Officer
• Location / Working model: Hybrid, UK Remote working with 1 day per week in Canary Wharf
• Applications close: 11th November

🩷 About Noodle

Noodle (previously Care ADHD) began as a small team with big ambitions and has since grown into a global organisation supporting thousands of people across the UK and India. Though our teams are continents apart, we’re united by one mission:

We drive lasting change through neurodevelopmental care that’s personal, clinically exceptional and easy to access.

We created Noodle because ADHD and autism shape how someone experiences the world, every day. The right support can bring more choice, more stability and more confidence – at home, at school and at work.

What drives us is simple: opening a world of possibility for different minds. Neurodevelopmental support, when done well, is one of the highest‑impact interventions in healthcare. The right care gives people more agency, more stability and the chance we all deserve: to thrive and be happy.

We’re here to make that happen for as many people as we can.

Brilliant works demands different minds. When different skills and experiences come together, something special happens.

🎯 Purpose of the Role

To provide strategic, professional and operational leadership for pharmacy and prescribing services across Noodle’s UK operations, ensuring safe, effective and evidence-based medicines optimisation, robust clinical governance and sustainable services that support our patients, colleagues and future growth.

This role sits within: Clinical Leadership / Clinical Operations.

Reports to: Chief Medical Officer.

And works closely with: Executive Committee, Chief Medical Officer, Clinical Directors, Director of Clinical Operations, non-medical prescribers, multidisciplinary clinical teams, divisional leads, external pharmacy providers, NHS England, CQC, ICBs, GPs, primary care services, pharmaceutical companies and academic partners.

👀 Is this the right fit for you?

You’re an experienced, GPhC-registered pharmacist and Independent Prescriber with significant senior-level experience within mental health, neurodevelopmental or community health services.

You bring extensive specialist knowledge of medicines optimisation, medicines management, controlled drugs legislation and prescribing governance. You’re confident providing professional leadership to non-medical prescribers, advising executive stakeholders and taking accountability for complex clinical and operational decisions.

You can translate national guidance, legislation and regulatory requirements into practical policies, processes and improvements that support clinical teams to deliver consistently high standards of care.

You’re comfortable leading within a hybrid environment, where most clinical interventions are delivered virtually and the clinical workforce is largely remote. You understand how to build effective systems that maintain professional standards, patient safety and quality across multiple services.

You’ll be equally comfortable setting strategic direction and understanding the operational detail needed to make it happen. You’ll use evidence, data, audits, feedback and evaluation to identify opportunities for improvement, while balancing clinical excellence with operational delivery and financial sustainability.

🧠 What This Job Is

This job is:

• A senior strategic and professional leadership position with accountability for prescribing and medicines optimisation across all UK services.
• An opportunity to shape and develop pharmacy-related services, setting the long-term vision, annual business plans and priorities in line with organisational strategy and OKRs.
• A role with significant responsibility for medicines governance, prescribing safety, controlled drugs, prescription management and regulatory assurance.
• A position requiring close collaboration with the CMO, Executive Committee, clinical leaders and external stakeholders to influence decisions and improve patient outcomes.

🚫 What This Job Isn’t

• A role focused solely on individual clinical prescribing. You’ll hold wider professional, strategic and operational accountability for prescribing services across the organisation.
• A standalone pharmacy role. You’ll need to work across functions, influence senior stakeholders and build relationships with external organisations and providers.
• A role where governance is simply about policies and paperwork. You’ll be accountable for ensuring frameworks are implemented, understood, monitored and translated into safe clinical practice.
• A role where services and processes are already established. You’ll be developing, reviewing and scaling prescribing services as Noodle continues to grow.

🧭 Core Duties and Responsibilities

1. Strategic Development and Service Leadership

• Lead on medicines optimisation across the business.
• Ensure the strategic development of pharmacy-related services.
• Take responsibility for producing the service’s annual business plan in line with the business strategy and OKRs.
• Coordinate and manage approved service developments, ensuring schemes are implemented within agreed deadlines.
• Develop and maintain strategic alliances with external bodies.
• Contribute to the formulation and implementation of business-wide strategies and plans, including new areas of growth and established services.
• Work with relevant Executive Directors and other colleagues to develop the strategic vision for pharmacy and prescribing services across the business.
• Establish and implement strategies to ensure short-term objectives and long-term goals are achieved.
• Contribute to the design, planning and implementation of pharmacy, IM&T and electronic prescribing systems.
• Develop and set the long-term strategy for pharmacy-related services, aligned with organisational strategy and the annual planning and prioritisation cycle.
• Develop business cases where required.
• Influence and negotiate within the business to ensure medicines services operate at the highest level and remain contemporary.
• Maximise the ability of services to respond quickly and efficiently to changes in the business agenda.
• Manage relevant budgets, ensuring resources are targeted towards agreed objectives.
• Contribute effectively to the business’s financial strategies and plans, maximising opportunities to develop services appropriately in support of the national agenda.
• Oversee effective information management and communication systems relating to pharmacy services, medicine use and expenditure across business divisions, including Neurodevelopmental, CYP and Primary Care Liaison services.

2. Prescribing Governance, Medicines Safety and Regulatory Compliance

• Provide senior clinical leadership to non-medical prescribers, ensuring appropriate governance structures are in place for safe prescribing in line with national guidelines, including those relating to controlled drugs.
• Act as the professional lead for non-medical prescribers.
• Act as the responsible clinician for oversight of Electronic Prescribing Systems.
• Hold responsibility for the oversight and governance of medicines across the business.
• Develop, implement and maintain the organisation’s Medicines Optimisation Strategy as part of corporate governance arrangements.
• Undertake relevant statutory roles, including Medicines Safety Officer and Controlled Drugs Accountable Officer for the business.
• Provide pharmaceutical and medicines optimisation advice to the Executive Committee, leading the governance and assurance framework to ensure the optimal and safe use of medicines.
• Hold responsibility for the governance of safe handling and use of prescriptions (FP10s) across the business.
• Be directly accountable to the Chief Medical Officer for the safe and secure handling of FP10 prescriptions across the organisation.
• Oversee relevant audits relating to prescription management and provide assurance to the Executive Committee.
• Implement processes and governance procedures for the safe tracking of prescription stationery, including the return of prescriptions when staff members leave the organisation.
• Manage the business-wide FP10 prescription systems and monitor expenditure data each month.
• Lead the clinical governance agenda relating to medicines optimisation and medicines management, including CQC standards, working alongside senior clinical colleagues.
• Establish policies and procedures to guide the work of non-medical prescribers, ensuring they are clearly understood and that appropriate training and support is available.
• Manage the development, implementation and review of medicines optimisation policies and procedures, including ongoing review of the organisation’s formulary.
• Ensure the formulary remains accurate and up to date, using current evidence to ensure appropriate treatments are available and clear prescribing guidance is provided to staff.
• Implement and monitor national initiatives, including medicines-related aspects of NICE guidance.
• Establish, develop and maintain policies and procedures that support safe medicines management and prescribing practice.
• Hold responsibility for shared care agreements and build and maintain relevant relationships with the CQC, ICBs, GPs and primary care services.
• Provide oversight of the organisation’s Medicines Information function.
• Ensure systems are in place to identify, manage, monitor and escalate clinical and non-clinical risks.
• Ensure medicines safety alerts and related requirements are implemented within prescribed timelines, working collaboratively where there are service delivery implications, challenges or disagreements.
• Manage serious incidents relating to medications.
• Provide specialist advice and contribute to investigations, inquests and root cause analyses following clinical incidents, including deaths.
• Ensure policies and procedures are in place and followed to minimise the risk of accidents and adverse incidents.
• Establish a learning culture where staff feel confident reporting accidents and mistakes at the earliest opportunity.

3. Service Delivery, Quality Improvement and Patient Outcomes

• Plan and prioritise the provision of prescribing services to meet patient needs.
• Review and implement prescribing systems and processes that support the smooth journey of patients through clinical pathways, working with clinical colleagues and providing pharmacy input.
• Ensure prescribing pathways address health inequalities.
• Continually review the quality of services, identifying and explaining the causes of success and failure, and working with clinical colleagues to improve service provision.
• Lead quality improvement and service development relating to medicines management and medicines optimisation.
• Establish systems that support the safe, evidence-based and cost-effective use of medicines in patient care.
• Contribute to the design, planning and implementation of pharmacy, IM&T and electronic prescribing systems.
• Oversee external contracts and service-level agreements for medicines optimisation or pharmacy services operating with relevant NHS organisations and external providers, including ICBs.
• Maintain oversight of pharmacy professional and medicines performance across the business, proposing changes and improvements following analysis of issues.
• Ensure good governance of services and decision-making, responding to feedback from staff and patients, including exit interviews, complaints and other escalations of concern.
• Ensure pharmacy-related services operate in line with relevant national and local targets.
• Ensure the delivery of a high-quality, safe and effective service to patients.
• Maintain oversight of the patient and clinical experience as prescribing services develop and grow.

4. People Leadership, Professional Standards and Stakeholder Engagement

• Manage staff effectively and support high performance across pharmacy-related services.
• Establish clear and appropriate communication throughout the business in relation to pharmacy services and the safe prescribing of medicines.
• Provide a role model of professional leadership that reflects the business’s values and behaviours.
• Ensure professional standards and practices are maintained across pharmacy-related services.
• Create and support a culture where clinical teams and individuals evaluate their work, celebrate success and learn from mistakes.
• Ensure all staff within pharmacy-related services are appropriately trained for their roles, with training provided at the required time.
• Provide training to the multidisciplinary team to support safe prescribing and medicines management.
• Ensure appropriate training and support is available to non-medical prescribers.
• Engage fully in the Quality and Safety Committee and associated forums, ensuring pharmacy-related services are represented in reporting structures and that risks are identified, managed and escalated appropriately with support from the senior clinical team.
• Build and maintain effective working relationships with divisional leads and external professionals, including GPs, consultants and pharmaceutical companies.
• Represent the business at relevant conferences and national events relating to pharmacy and safe prescribing.
• Respond to queries from external bodies and individuals.
• Participate in legal and clinical investigations and hearings as required.
• Communicate complex and sensitive information clearly to staff, patients and stakeholders, including where there may be barriers to understanding or implications for an individual’s employment or role.
• Prepare and present reports and presentations to very senior stakeholders on complex pharmacy professional and medicines issues, including annual assurance reports and business cases.
• Communicate decisions and outcomes relating to medicines management from the Executive Committee and other senior forums, ensuring they inform service delivery.
• Communicate complex decisions that balance multiple clinical, regulatory and financial risks.
• Use persuasion and negotiation to achieve the best possible outcomes for pharmacy-related services and the business as a whole.
• Work collaboratively to ensure medicines safety alerts and related requirements are implemented within prescribed timelines, including where there are service delivery implications, challenges or disagreements.
• Communicate audit and service evaluation results to senior management and Executive colleagues.

5. Financial Management, Research, Development and Evaluation

• Establish effective information management and communication systems within pharmacy-related services, including oversight of medicine use and expenditure across business divisions.
• Manage relevant budgets and ensure resources are targeted towards agreed objectives.
• Contribute to the business’s financial strategies and plans, maximising opportunities to develop services appropriately in support of the national agenda.
• Manage the business-wide FP10 prescription systems and monitor expenditure data each month.
• Support the development of the business’s research and evaluation work.
• Develop and deliver the pharmacy and medicines audit and evaluation annual plan.
• Promote and support research and development in pharmacy-related services and medication management.
• Provide leadership on pharmaceutical research and development, including engagement with the pharmaceutical industry to develop industry-based studies.
• Engage with university and academic partners to support delivery of the research strategy.
• Coordinate and implement clinical trials, audits, research and development activity for pharmacy-related services.
• Coordinate and deliver the relevant service audit and evaluation annual plan, presenting outputs at appropriate committees.
• Manage external contracts and service-level agreements for medicines optimisation and pharmacy services, working with relevant NHS organisations and external providers.

Scope of the Role

The role covers the full range of Noodle’s UK services, currently including:

• Adult neurodevelopmental services (ADHD and Autism).
• Children and Young People’s (CYP) neurodevelopmental services (ADHD and Autism).
• Primary Care Liaison services.

Noodle has a strategic aim of significant growth over the coming years. Additional services will therefore come online and will require oversight from this role.

There may be opportunities to work alongside international colleagues as Noodle develops its neurodevelopmental services in India. However, pharmacy and prescribing services outside of the UK will not fall within this role’s direct responsibility.

🚀 To Thrive in this Role, You’ll Need

Core skills and qualifications

• Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).
• PGDip or MSc in Pharmacy Practice, or equivalent.
• Independent Prescriber qualification.
• Postgraduate qualification in Management or Leadership.
• Must meet NHS England requirements for a Designated Prescribing Practitioner.
• Evidence of compliance with Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements.
• Extensive specialist knowledge of medicines optimisation and medicines management, including budget setting.
• Extensive knowledge of controlled drugs and medicines legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management and leadership.
• Knowledge of NHS Commissioning Processes and experience working with key stakeholders such as NHS England.
• Extensive specialist knowledge of mental health and neurodevelopmental health, and community health prescribing issues in primary and secondary care.

Experience

• Experience of effective leadership of a service and service provision, including staff management and associated human resources processes.
• Experience in leading quality improvement projects.

Desirable criteria

• Membership of the Royal College of Pharmacy (RCPharm).
• Knowledge and experience of clinical trials, research and evaluation.
• Experience interpreting national policy and understanding its local implications.
• Extensive experience of strategic planning, planning and organisational skills.
• Experience of policy development and implementation.

Analytical and judgement skills

• Ability to advise the Executive Committee and senior stakeholders on complex pharmacy professional and medicines issues requiring detailed analysis, interpretation, comparison, benchmarking and option appraisal to ensure the best solution is taken forward.
• Ability to maintain oversight of pharmacy professional and medicines performance, proposing changes and improvements based on analysis of issues.
• Ability to ensure good governance of services and decision-making, including responding to feedback from staff and patients.
• Ability to develop and interpret broad policies and clinical guidelines.

Planning and organisational skills

• Ability to lead all aspects of pharmacy-related service delivery across the business, including relationships with external pharmacy partners.
• Ability to develop and set the long-term strategy for pharmacy-related services, aligned with organisational strategy and the annual planning and prioritisation cycle.
• Ability to develop annual plans and generate business cases as required.
• Ability to plan, manage and prioritise your own workload and support others to manage theirs.

Clinical and professional responsibilities

• As the professional lead for non-medical prescribers, you will be accountable for all aspects of professional and operational prescribing service delivery, working alongside Clinical Directors and the Director of Clinical Operations, with accountability to the Chief Medical Officer.
• When required to work clinically, you will work at an advanced level of clinical practice with limited support.
• You will be responsible for autonomous assessment, clinical decision-making, treatment selection and evaluation of patients as part of clinical activity.
• You will maintain access to patient records, use the electronic patient record system and accurately record your own clinical and management work in a timely manner.
• You will have significant freedom to act within the role, including clinical and management decisions, working to agreed protocols and broad professional standards, organisational guidelines and codes of practice.
• Your work will not be regularly or directly supervised or checked, and you will be expected to exercise professional judgement within the agreed frameworks and boundaries of the role.

💙 Behaviours and Culture

Care is at the heart of who we are – in how we support patients, and in how we treat each other as colleagues. We believe the way we show up for each other is just as important as what we do. Skills matter, but it’s our mindset, behaviours and willingness to learn, adapt and improve that protect the supportive culture we’ve built, and help us thrive together.

Below are behaviours we value, with a few of our principles.

• Assume Good Intent – Stay open, not cynical. If something doesn’t go to plan, ask yourself where it went wrong and treat the root cause.
• Share the Context – Bring people into the ‘why’, not just the ‘what’. We share background, goals and constraints early so others don’t have to spend time guessing, waiting or chasing.
• Move with Care – Go fast when it’s safe – and slow when trust, wellbeing or clinical decisions demand extra attention. We double-check high-stakes moments and design for reassurance.
• Prove Then Improve – We move quickly, but we don’t rely on hunches. We test our thinking early, run pilots, and scale what works – reducing risk and keeping quality high every step of the way.
• Partner with Integrity – Be true to your word. Be the partner people trust when it matters – reliable, honest and steady even when it’s hard or complicated. Communicate early and often, closing the loop.
• Build for Scale – We prioritise solutions that can grow with us – not quick hacks we’ll soon have to unpick or rework. Future us will thank us for it.
• Focus on Outcomes – Measure success by the change we create and the impact we make – in real lives, teams and systems. We track what improved – and if outcomes don’t move, change course.

🌟 What Success Looks Like

Success measures

• A clear, agreed strategic vision and annual business plan for pharmacy and prescribing services, aligned with organisational strategy and OKRs.
• Robust medicines optimisation and prescribing governance frameworks are implemented, maintained and regularly reviewed across all UK services.
• Non-medical prescribers receive appropriate professional leadership, training and support, with safe prescribing practices consistently maintained.
• Electronic prescribing systems and FP10 processes are appropriately governed, audited and monitored, with assurance provided to the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Committee.
• Medicines safety risks, incidents and alerts are effectively managed, escalated and addressed within required timescales.
• Prescribing services meet relevant national and local targets and demonstrate continuous improvement in quality, safety and patient outcomes.
• The organisation’s formulary, medicines policies and clinical guidance remain accurate, current and evidence-based.
• Shared care agreements are appropriately managed and effective relationships are maintained with relevant NHS bodies, ICBs, GPs and primary care services.
• Medicines Information provision is appropriately overseen and supports safe, effective medicines management.
• New and established services have the pharmacy and prescribing infrastructure, resources and governance required to support safe and sustainable growth.
• Effective working relationships are established and maintained with internal stakeholders, NHS organisations, CQC, GPs, primary care services and external pharmacy providers.
• Research, audit and evaluation plans are delivered, with findings shared through appropriate governance and committee structures.
• Budgets and resources are managed effectively, with appropriate oversight of medicines expenditure and external contracts.

🙏 What You Can Expect From Us

• Competitive salary and pay framework.
• Remote UK working, with one day Hybrid working per week in our Canary Wharf Office.
• 33 days holiday (including UK public holidays).
• Team get-togethers.
• A paid day off for your birthday.
• Office equipment on joining.
• £500 stipend to help set up your home office.
• £500 yearly professional development fund.

📅 Our Hiring Process

We aim to make our hiring process as streamlined as possible.

What to Expect

📩 We’ll aim to contact shortlisted candidates by 12th November

💻 Initial Microsoft Teams calls with one of our Talent Acquisition Specialists will take place on 13th November, the perfect chance for us to get to know each other more.

👥 Interviews will be held on 17th November and will include a candidate led presentation.

Apply With Confidence 💙

Studies show that men apply for roles when they meet around 60% of the qualifications, whereas women and other marginalised groups often apply only if they meet every requirement. If you believe you’re a great fit but don’t meet every single requirement, we encourage you to apply!

At Noodle, we’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive environment. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds, especially those from historically marginalised communities, as we work together to create a more equitable future.

Safeguarding

All employees are responsible for taking reasonable measures to ensure the risks of harm to children and vulnerable adults are minimised. You will be expected to take appropriate action to address concerns, working in line with agreed local policies and procedures, including safeguarding guidance, and in partnership with relevant agencies. This includes accessing appropriate training, advice and support.

Equality and Diversity

All employees should be able to demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, in line with relevant Equality, Diversity and Human Rights legislation.