Medicines Management Technician in Wigan

Due to internal promotion, the Pharmacy department are seeking to appoint a motivated and dynamic Pharmacy Technician. You will need to be inspirational and determined in your approach and be able to influence healthcare professionals outside of traditional pharmacy boundaries. We can offer you the opportunity to succeed in providing the highest standards of care for patients, developing your own professional career. You will spend most of your working week on your ward.

You will actively participate in the multi-disciplinary team making pharmaceutical interventions, ensuring medicines reconciliation queries are resolved at the first opportunity, ensuring the most appropriate medicines are started in line with Trust formulary, ensuring effective antimicrobial stewardship, ensuring effective medicines safety (e.g. where appropriate, that VTE prophylaxis is in place, that therapeutic drug monitoring is occurring), ensuring transfer of care information is captured when medicines are started, stopped and changed, ordering new medicines when necessary and ensuring effective discharge planning takes place.

Candidates are required to present original certificates for qualifications at interview stage. Please note this vacancy may close earlier than the specified closing date if a high level of suitable applications are received.

Main duties of the job

• Directly accountable to the Pharmacy Technician Team Manager you will help shape services and standards, driving improvements in medicines optimisation.
• This is an extremely exciting time to join our pharmacy team. We are developing our own ward based pharmacy support to all wards.
• The wards have their own dedicated pharmacist / technician and assistant, to support medicines optimisation, and to deliver proactive ward-based pharmacy services by supporting effective discharge planning and patient counselling and education.
• Alongside our medical, nursing and pharmacy colleagues, you must have a strong desire to help manage change in policies, procedures and associated risk management activities which lead to quality improvements on admission and discharge.
• You will improve key performance indicators in patient education about medicines, time to discharge, length of stay and re-admission rates.
• This approach has been shown to reduce length of stay; get patients home earlier in the day, reduce readmission rates, reduce drug expenditure, and improve patient and staff experience.
• We have Medicine Administration technicians on various wards across the trust to support our nursing colleagues.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To support the Pharmacy Technician Team Manager deliver ward based services to an agreed range of patients in collaboration with pharmacists, technicians and assistants.
• To provide Clinical technician support to existing Clinical Pharmacist Services.
• To administer medicines on wards.
• To accuracy check, clinically checked out-patient prescriptions, CD tins, Discharge letters and One Stop Dispensing orders.
• To communicate in a professional manner, factual information about availability of medicines to patients, other Trust staff and external departments.
• To be aware of the overall medication needs of the patients on the ward.
• Take an effective medication history from patient or other reliable source.
• Assessing suitability of patients own drugs for re-use on ward.
• In Liaison with Dispensary staff to organise the most appropriate supplies of medication to patients and wards and maintain relevant stock lists.
• To ensure that urgent medication requests are fulfilled.
• To counsel patients during their stay and prior to discharge on all aspects of their medication requirement.
• To have an understanding of and to implement relevant departmental procedures ensuring standards are met and agreed at all times.
• To suggest improvements to departmental procedures through line management.
• To receive, interpret, dispense and handout prescriptions in line with departmental standard operating procedures.
• To assist in the supply of medications to wards, departments and external agencies.
• To review and revise stock lists for wards.
• To issue controlled drugs to patients, wards and departments maintaining relevant registers.
• To participate in clinical trials under direct supervision ensuring relevant details are maintained in trials documentation.

Planning and Organisational Duties

• To recycle or destroy medicines returned from wards, departments and external agencies.
• To assist in the ordering, issuing and receiving of medication.
• To assist in the maintenance of the pharmacy stock system.
• To check expiry dates and safe storage of medicines within areas of responsibility ensuring effective action is taken when necessary.
• To assist in audit and surveys as directed by line manager.

Communications and Key Working Relationships

• To organise own work patterns within framework provided by Line Manager.
• To be an active member of relevant pharmacy groups, contributing to the development of high quality and consistent pharmaceutical policies, procedures and services within the Trust.
• The post holder will be responsible for reading and complying with agreed SOP’s in order to provide a consistent, efficient and effective service.
• To be a positive role model for the Pharmacy service.
• To develop effective working relationships with other healthcare professionals within area of responsibility.

Responsibility for Finance

• To handle prescription charges & issue relevant receipts.

Responsibility for Human Resources

• To provide support for pharmacy assistants, senior pharmacy assistants, Student Pharmacy technicians, Pre-registration Pharmacists, workplace experience students and new starters within boundaries of knowledge, skill, experience and training.
• To participate in Trust Compulsory training programme and Trust Appraisal system.
• To participate in Continuous Professional Development in line with GPhC requirements.

Responsibility for Health & Safety

• To ensure patients and staff are advised of risks with medicines and to minimise those risks through effective medicines management.
• To ensure known risks are brought to attention of line managers immediately.
• To report medicines related incidents using the Datix system.
• In conjunction with managers to ensure appropriate systems are put in place to prevent recurrence where possible.
• Compliance with the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 – the post holder is required to fulfil a proactive role towards the management of risk in all of their actions.
• This entails the risk assessment of all situations, the taking of appropriate actions and reporting of all incidents, near misses and hazards, and a statutory duty of care for their own personal safety and that of others who may be affected by their acts or omissions.

Responsibility for Teaching

• Provide assessment for NVQ level 3 Pharmacy Student Technicians.
• To organise and where needed deliver Level 2 Foundation Modern Apprenticeship in Dispensing and Pharmacy Assistant Training for ATO’s.

Person specification

• May be required to lift heavy objects from time to time.
• Speak English to an appropriate standard relevant to their role, i.e. with confidence and accuracy, using correct sentence structures and vocabulary and without hesitation.

Knowledge

• Basic computer skills.

Skills

• Accurate.
• Methodical.
• Diplomatic.
• Ability to work in team or on own.
• Ability to delegate tasks.

Experience

• Previous work experience in a pharmacy or similar healthcare setting.

Qualifications

• BTEC / NVQ level 3 pharmacy services or equivalent.
• Registered with GPhC as pharmacy Technician.

Our Trust prefers candidates to submit applications online. Please contact the Recruitment Team on 01942 244000 if you have difficulty applying online.

If you choose to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) or other tools to assist in writing your application, it’s essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting statement to reflect the skills and experience to match your job application. Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting statement is not advocated by Wrightington Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as it could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process.

The Trust reserves the right to close adverts earlier than the stated closing date if there is a high volume of applications. We endeavour to inform all applicants of the outcome of their application by email or SMS text message.

Guidance on Completing Your Application

Applications are scored against the person specification, therefore we recommend that you use the supporting information section of your application form to demonstrate how you meet the essential and desirable criteria for the role, providing illustrative examples where possible.

On-Call

Please note that some roles may require you to participate in an on-call rota, if the role is predominantly operational.

WWL has signed up to the Greater Manchester Continuous Service Commitment and will recognise your continuous or ‘unbroken’ service in any Greater Manchester Local Authority or NHS organisation, Transport for Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service or Greater Manchester Combined Authority; giving you access to our service-related benefits.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration. This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.