Clinical Pharmacist in Stratford-upon-Avon

We have the opportunity for a proactive pharmacist to work for Trinity Court as a Pharmacist. We are looking for the equivalent of a Band 7 Clinical Pharmacist (either with general practice, hospital or community pharmacy experience) to join our current dedicated team. Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice is part of an exciting programme of transformation to develop a new model of care which addresses the ambition to deliver person‐centred, coordinated care. The Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice model is supported by the direction of national policy 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.

Main duties of the job

The purpose of the role is to directly improve patient care and support the efficient running of a new model of general practice. You will be based in a single practice. You will become the practice expert in medicines optimisation and have input into the following areas but not limited to: undertaking structured medication reviews, improving medicines optimisation and safety, supporting care homes, and running practice clinics. Pharmacist reviews are expected to reduce avoidable A&E attendances, hospital admissions, avoidable outpatient visits and over‐medication.

You will be part of a group of clinical pharmacists working under the supervision with training and mentoring support from the Clinical Pharmacy Supervisor.

About us

We are a 21,000 patient practice situated in Stratford upon Avon with a strong work ethic and a well integrated team. We are looking for a Clinical Pharmacist to be part of our PCN ARRS staff. We have a large Clinical team to support you and a strong Management team. We are looking for a clinical pharmacist who will work collaboratively with the multidisciplinary team (MDT) within our PCN, ensuring safe, evidence based, & cost‐effective prescribing. You will also be responsible for offering support to general practice staff in relation to prescription & medication queries as well as conducting medicines reconciliation on transfer of care.

Job responsibilities

• Telephone Acute Medicines Support: Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines and acute medication requests.
• Management Of Medicines At Discharge From Hospital: To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post‐discharge.
• Management Of Medicines Reconciliation of Clinic Letters: Patient Facing Long-Term Conditions Clinics. See patients face‐to‐face, or work with patients on the telephone, or by written correspondence (where appropriate with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required e.g. COPD, asthma).
• Patient Facing Clinical Medication Review: Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for Nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
• Patient Facing Care Home Medication Reviews: Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the Nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
• Patient Facing Domiciliary Clinical Medication Review: Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the Nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
• Patient Facing Medicines Support: Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
• Medicine Information To Practice Staff And Patients: Answers relevant medicine‐related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
• Unplanned Hospital Admissions: Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews. Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high‐risk patient groups.
• Signposting: Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long‐term condition reviews etc.
• Repeat Prescribing: Manage the repeat prescribing re‐authorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
• Risk Stratification: Identification of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre‐prepared practice computer searches. This might include risks that are patient‐related, medicine‐related, or both.
• Service Development: Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components (e.g. advice on treatment pathways and patient information leaflets).
• Information Management: Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making.
• Medicines Quality Improvement: Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team.
• Medicines Safety: Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
• Implementation Of Local And National Guidelines And Formulary Recommendations: Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy's RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs). Assist practices in seeing and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practice's computer system. Auditing practice compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
• Education And Training: Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
• Care Quality Commission: Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards.
• Public Health: To support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.
• Collaborative Working Relationships: Recognises the roles of other colleagues within the organisation and their role to patient care. Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co‐operation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS/private organisations e.g. ICBs). Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary. Actively work toward developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the practice and locality. Foster and maintain strong links with all services across locality. Explores the potential for collaborative working and takes opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships. Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams. Liaises with ICB colleagues including ICB Pharmacists on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit. Liaises with ICB pharmacists and Heads of Medicines Management/ Optimisation to benefit from peer support. Liaises with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients including but not limited to: Patients, GP, nurses and other practice staff, Other healthcare professionals including ICB pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, optometrists, dentists, health and social care teams and dieticians etc., Community nurses and other allied health professionals, Community and hospital pharmacy teams, Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimisation, Patient Reference Group.
• Confidentiality: In the course of seeking treatment, patients entrust us with, or allow us to gather, sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters. They do so in confidence and have the right to expect that staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately. In the performance of the duties outlined in this job description, the post‐holder will have access to confidential information relating to the Practice as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential. Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the Practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the Practice Policies and Procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data.

Person Specification

• Qualifications: GPC Registration, Evidence of CPD, Post graduate masters or diploma in clinical pharmacy / management or equivalent (or working towards) or equivalent.
• Experience: Evidence of capacity to work successfully autonomous and as part of a team, Experience of working with IT programs and software such as Microsoft Office, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and the internet, Experience of working with GP clinical systems such EMIS, SystmOne, Electronic Prescription Service, Evidence of having achieved personal and departmental objectives within the workplace, Experience of proactively and effectively managing phone calls/lists and requests from patients, Experience of handling and dealing with specimens in accordance with Infection Prevention Control policies and procedures.
• Understanding of the NHS/ Primary Care services, Knowledge of confidentiality in the workplace/ information governance, A good level of knowledge and understanding of the primary care sector and the healthcare sector, Extensive knowledge of IT programs and software such as Microsoft Office, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and the internet, Extensive knowledge of working with GP clinical systems such EMIS, SystemOne, Electronic Prescription Service, A good level of knowledge and understanding of medical terminology, Experience of working in a GP 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.