Clinical Pharmacist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Primary duties contained within this role include the following:

• Patient facing long-term condition clinic -See (where appropriate) patients 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 senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
• Patient facing care home medication reviews -Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP 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 senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
• Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments -Manage caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence. Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate.
• Work in collaboration within the acute triage multi-disciplinary team -Undertake resolution of medication related acute requests and management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments within our acute care enablement platform
• Patient facing medicines support -Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• Telephone medicines support -Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, query and concerns about their medicines.
• Medicine information to practice staff and patients -Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggest and recommend solutions. Provide 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.
• Management of medicines at discharge form hospital -Reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and community pharmacist to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge. Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patient (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).
• Supporting cost effective medicines use -Make the best use of NHS resources spent on medicines. Work with NHS Sheffield Place Based ICB Medicines Optimisation Team to maximise cost effective prescribing in primary care.
• 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 -Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy. Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation 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 -Identify of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-pared 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 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 economys 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 practices computer system. Auditing practices 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 where medicines are involved.
• Public health -Support public health campaigns providing specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the public.
• Collaborative working relationships -Demonstrate the use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, other professionals, other NHS/private organisations e.g. ICB), Demonstrate ability to work as a member of a team, Recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleagues(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, Explore the potential for collaborative working and take opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships, Demonstrate ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams, Liaise with ICB colleagues including ICB pharmacists and technicians on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit, Liaise with ICB pharmacists and Head of Medicines Management to benefit from peer support, Liaise with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients
• Knowledge, skills and experience -Work towards an independent prescribing qualification, Prioritise when problem-solving and identify deviations from normal pattern, referring to seniors or GPs when appropriate, Follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct, Involve patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and support adherence as per NICE guidelines
• Leadership -Apply clinical governance, implementing appropriately within the workplace, Engage with Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) in development of the clinical pharmacist role in practices, Improve quality within the limitations of the service, Review yearly progress and develop clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others, Motivate self to achieve goals, Promote diversity and equality in people management techniques and lead by example.
• Management -Effectively implement local and national priorities for the team and/or service, Demonstrate an understanding of the process for effective resource utilisation, Demonstrate an understanding of and conform to relevant standards of practice, Identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol, Follow professional and organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management, Adapt to extended boundaries within the delivery of the service
• Education, training and development -Participate in formal education programmes relevant to the role including CPPE GP Education Pathway and Independent Prescribing (if not already complete), Act as role model to members in the team and/or service, Demonstrate an understanding of the mentorship process, Conduct teaching and assessment effectively according to a learning plan with supervision from more experienced colleagues, Participate in continuous professional development activity; working alongside senior clinical pharmacist to identify areas to develop, Demonstrate an understanding of current education policies relevant to working areas of practice and keep up to date with relevant clinical practice, Ensure there is appropriate clinical supervision in place to support development, Enrol in review and appraisal systems with the organisation
• Research and Evaluation -Critically evaluate and review literature, Identify gaps in evidence base to support practice, Generate evidence suitable for presentations at practice and local level, Apply research evidence base into work place, Understand principles of research governance
• Special Working Conditions -The post-holder is required to travel independently between practice sites, to patient homes, care homes and to attend meetings hosted by other agencies, The post-holder will have contact with body fluids i.e. wound exudates, urine etc. while in clinical practice

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent)

Desirable

• Specialist knowledge acquired through post-graduate diploma level or equivalent training/experience
• Independent prescriber or working towards/intent of gaining independent prescribing qualification

Experience

Essential

• An understanding of general practice and how it works
• An understanding of the context of prescribing in primary care and strategies for its improvement
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills including within patient consultations
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to implement medicines optimisation
• Good IT skills including the ability to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• Recognise priorities when problem solving and identify deviations from the normal pattern, able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
• Able to work under pressure, prioritise workloads and to meet deadlines.
• Work effectively both independently and as a team member

Desirable

• In-depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients)
• Produce timely and informative reports

Professional Registration

Essential

• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council

Desirable

• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Other

Essential

• Self-motivation
• Adaptable
• Immunisation status

Desirable

• Full driving licence

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Primary Care Sheffield

Address

722 Prince of Wales Road

Sheffield

South Yorkshire

S9 4EU

Employer's website

http://www.primarycaresheffield.org.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)