Pharmacy Technician in Carlisle

The post holder will play a key role in ensuring the safe, effective, and efficient use of medicines across both practice populations. As an integral member of the multidisciplinary team, they will contribute to medicines optimisation by undertaking a range of technical, clinical, and patient-facing activities designed to improve prescribing quality and support enhanced patient outcomes. The post holder will work across two practices, Carlisle Healthcare and Spencer Street Surgery, and will therefore be required to attend both sites.

Main duties of the job

• Providing patient centred medicines support, including shared decision conversations, counselling on new or changed medicines, and ensuring safe and effective use of treatments.
• Processing prescriptions, supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation across care settings, and contributing to medicines optimisation, antimicrobial stewardship, and the implementation of national prescribing guidance.
• Working as part of the multidisciplinary team to help streamline prescription workflows, promote eRD, reduce medicines waste, and maintain accurate clinical records.
• Supporting medicines safety through monitoring, post-discharge reconciliation, maintaining shared care protocols, and ensuring accurate allergy and alert documentation.
• Contributing to clinical governance by responding to MHRA alerts, supporting audits, and assisting with incident reporting, while maintaining professional development and supporting the learning of others.

About us

Carlisle Healthcare is a large NHS general practice partnership formed in 2016 through the merger of three established city surgeries. Operating across three sites, we provide care for around 39,000 patients and work collaboratively as a four practice Primary Care Network, enabling innovation and improved models of primary care. We are a diverse, multidisciplinary team delivering high quality, patient-centred care, including GPs, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, a Home Visiting Team, Clinical Pharmacists, First Contact Physiotherapists, Mental Health Workers, Practice Nurses and HCAs, and comprehensive management and administrative teams. We also work with remote clinicians to enhance capacity. As a busy, forward thinking practice, we focus on delivering excellent patient care while supporting staff wellbeing, fostering a positive and fulfilling workplace, and encouraging continuous improvement. We are an established GP training practice, hosting learners across multiple disciplines including medical, nursing, and ACP trainees, as well as apprentices reflecting our strong commitment to education and developing the future primary care workforce.

Job responsibilities

• Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients.
• Process prescriptions in line with agreed clinical protocols and within competency.
• Utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.
• Support 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.
• Work with the multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes, and reducing wastage.
• Support team in sorting and streaming general prescription requests, so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests.
• Promote Electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) and online ordering as appropriate to patient and practice needs.
• 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.
• Support service development, contributing to audits and practice-wide initiatives.
• Maintain accurate patient records that clearly and comprehensively reflect the content of each consultation, ensuring all information is documented in line with professional, legal, and organisational standards.
• Provide advice within professional remit to GPs and practice staff relating to changes to prescribing guidance to support the improvement of prescribing safety, quality, and cost effectiveness.
• Counsel patients on how to use newly started medications, and provide advice regarding any medication changes, to optimise safety and improve compliance.
• Support implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations.
• Support and encourage reduction in prescribing of medicines available to purchase over the counter, medicines of low value, and low priority treatments.
• Identify patients that are overdue required monitoring and refer to the appropriate clinicians.
• Reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and appropriately rectifying unexplained changes.
• Ensure shared care protocols are in place where relevant and ensure the continuation of safe practice within primary care is maintained.
• Work with the pharmacy service team to develop and implement systems to ensure the effective and continuous supply of medication to high-risk patients.
• Understand and accurately record relevant patient alerts (e.g. visually impaired, hard of hearing).
• Ensure patient allergy information is accurate and correctly documented, and that the information is shared with the wider multidisciplinary team.

Clinical Governance

• Respond to Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) alerts, set up searches to identify affected patients on the practice clinical systems and action them according to practice protocol.
• Monitor practice prescribing against the local formulary and report back results to the clinical pharmacist team and action as required.
• Support in the reporting of medicines related incidents, and when required, contribute to investigations and root cause analysis.

Person Specification

Skills

• Strong communication and consultation skills
• Well-developed word processing/data collection/IT skills
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills
• Effective organisational and time management skills
• Accuracy and attention to detail
• Ability to work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team
• Ability to interpret clinical information to support clinical decision making
• Ability to prioritise and manage own workload
• Flexible approach to work, adapting to changing priorities
• Ability to use own initiative

Experience

• Minimum of 2 years post registration experience
• Experience in medicines optimisation
• Experience working in a primary care, hospital or community setting
• Experience dealing with patients/public

Knowledge

• Understanding of primary care workflows
• Understanding of medicines legislations, including controlled drugs, safeguarding and national prescribing guidance
• Understanding of medicines management, pharmaceutical care principles, and repeat prescribing processes

Qualifications

• Pharmacy Technician registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
• BTEC/NVQ level 3 or equivalent in pharmaceutical science
• Evidence of continued professional development

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.