Pharmacy Technician 37.5 hours per week

Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice is part of an exciting programme of transformation to develop a new model of care which addresses our ambition to deliver person-centred, coordinated care across the district. The Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice model is supported by the direction of national policy including the Five Year Forward View and GP Forward View where there is a need to better utilise the role of pharmacy within primary care to pro-actively help patients stay safe and well and out of hospital as well as helping to reduce the demands on general practice.

Pharmacy technicians play an important role, complementing clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists and other members of the PCN multi-disciplinary team. Pharmacy technicians are different to clinical pharmacists as they are not able to prescribe or make clinical decisions, instead working under supervision to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines. Pharmacy technicians core role responsibilities will cover clinical, technical and administrative categories.

The purpose of the role is to lead improvements to maximise safe, cost effective best practice in prescribing to improve the quality of patient care. The post holder will help patients to get the best from their medicines by switching medications to agreed and approved protocols, improving repeat prescribing processes in General Practice, including promotion of repeat dispensing and online ordering, minimising clinical risk and aiming to reduce wasted medicines. In addition, the post holder will be responsible for encouraging the development of better understanding of the principles of medicines optimisation throughout the practice teams and promoting good practice in line with therapeutic developments. This will involve assisting the PCN in achieving national requirements, NICE implementation and utilisation of medicines optimisation initiatives.

Carry out medicines optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively. As determined by the PCN, support medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, linking with local community pharmacies.

Penwith PCN has around 67,000 registered practice population, in the far West of the country and is a large, forward-thinking, well-integrated network of 7 GP practices. Our geography includes some remote rural locations as well as towns, surrounded on 3 sides by the coast. This role may be working mainly from one practice, but the successful applicant may be required to change location as per the business's needs. We are looking to recruit a Pharmacy Technician to work with GP practices in and around Penzance, as part of Penwith Primary Care Network (PCN) in West Cornwall. This is a practice-based role, not remote, with technicians working day-to-day alongside GPs, nurses and the wider multidisciplinary team.

We will consider part-time to full-time hours, and you will have the opportunity to be responsible for your own GP practice, allowing you to build strong relationships with patients and practice staff while being supported by the wider PCN pharmacy team. This role is ideal for a Pharmacy Technician who enjoys patient-facing work, values continuity within a practice team, and wants to contribute to a one team culture-focused on personalised care and medicines optimisation within general practice. We are happy to support technicians through the primary care pharmacy education pathway where needed.

Penwith Primary Care Network is a large forward thinking and well-integrated PCN covering the westerly point of Cornwall comprising of seven GP practices. The PCN have recently implemented a pharmacy virtual hub which supports practices to complete project & audit work as well as functioning as a space for sharing best practice across the PCN. The post holder will be contributing towards a one team culture throughout the organisation and promoting personalised care, focused on what matters to you, not what's the matter with you. The post holder will be an integral part of the practice team working as part of the multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants and reception/administrators, as well as functioning as a member of the wider PCN pharmacy team.

• Support the pharmacist to provide a clinical pharmacy service in general practice;
• Participate in practice meetings and other meetings to improve the integration of the pharmacy technician within general practice & promote issues relevant to prescribing and medicines optimisation.
• Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients;
• Carry out medicines optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews, and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively;
• Support, as determined by the PCN, medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings and linking with local community pharmacists;
• Provide specialist expertise, where competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities;
• Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients;
• Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing;
• Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive schemes and patient safety audits;
• Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g. use of antibiotics), supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services.

• Use and maintain information systems and databases relevant to the positions including incident reporting, medicines optimisation, prescribing data, cost savings and patient outcomes;
• Be responsible for the organisation, planning of own workload & meet set deadlines;
• Work with the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes, and reducing wastage;
• Supervise practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests, to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests;
• Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across PCNs, supporting practices with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic Prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems, and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines;
• Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS);
• Develop relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care, and mental health.

• Professional registration with GPhC
• BTEC/NVQ level 3 or equivalent in pharmaceutical sciences
• Evidence of continued professional development (CPD)
• Experience of working as a qualified, registered pharmacy technician in primary care, community or hospital pharmacy
• Minimum of 2 years' experience in primary care

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.