Medication Safety Officer and Governance Lead

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a pharmacist with drive and enthusiasm to play a pivotal role in Medicines Safety and Clinical Governance across Whittington Trust. Are you up for the challenge in building excellence? Are you passionate about working with a wide range of healthcare professionals to promote a positive safety culture? If so, then this is the perfect opportunity for you.

We are looking for an experienced Pharmacist with extensive clinical pharmacy knowledge, excellent communication skills and a strive for excellence. The post holder will be expected to forge strong professional relationships across the trust and be responsible for leading patient safety and clinical governance initiatives relating to medicines management including Controlled Drugs. They will be pivotal in the ongoing development and delivery of the trust medication safety programme. The post holder will need to have the ability to work with a wide range of multidisciplinary teams and be a key member of a number of groups and committees concerned with patient safety internally as well as externally.

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Person specification

• Education / Qualifications: MPharm (or equivalent), Registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council, Further post graduate qualification Diploma/MSc in Pharmacy Practice or Clinical Pharmacy or equivalent, Membership of the RPS and relevant professional clinical group (e.g. Meds Safety Network or UKCPA), Independent prescriber.
• Skills & Abilities: High-level clinical skills sufficient to engage in appropriate dialogue with senior clinicians around complex clinical cases, Good written and oral communication skills, Good negotiation skills, Experience of supervising and training junior pharmacists and wider pharmacy team members, Good interpersonal and negotiation skills, Good problem-solving & numeracy skills, Ability to evaluate and to plan service developments, Understand, articulate and apply the principles of change management to the healthcare setting, Demonstrates abilities to drive quality improvement and digital innovation to support medicines safety.
• Knowledge & Experience: Demonstrates a whole-system patient-focused approach to work, Good understanding of the role of medication safety & clinical governance within the acute setting and how this supports patient care, Relevant clinical experience from working in an acute hospital setting, Appropriate knowledge of the legal requirements when dealing with and processing Controlled Drugs, Experience of conducting medicines management audits and producing action plans and reports, Experience of contributing to, or leading quality improvement projects.
• Personal Qualities: Reliable, Self-motivated, Able to set realistic goals and outcomes, Able to work under pressure whilst maintaining accuracy and attention to detail, Commitment to continuing personal development, Knowledge and understanding of equality and diversity issues.

SafeGuarding children and adults: To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.