Consultant Pharmacist, Breast Cancer | The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

Dyddiad hysbysebu:	19 Mehefin 2025
Cyflog:	Heb ei nodi
Gwybodaeth ychwanegol am y cyflog:	£74,290 - £85,601 per annum, pro rata
Oriau:	Llawn Amser
Dyddiad cau:	19 Gorffennaf 2025
Lleoliad:	Manchester, M20 4BX
Cwmni:	The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Math o swydd:	Parhaol
Cyfeirnod swydd:	7292898/413-96206-CSSS-SNR

Crynodeb

This innovative new post will be a critical part of the multidisciplinary team that will support the ongoing development of the breast cancer disease group at one of the leading Cancer Centres in Europe.

Breast cancer is the largest and one of the busiest services at the Trust.

Pharmacy supports a rapidly-growing portfolio of systemic anti-cancer therapies (SACT) across a comprehensive network, allowing the Trust to administer parenteral SACT in 11 outreach and peripheral satellites and at patients’ homes as well as the Christie hospital main site.

In addition, there has been a huge growth in oral SACT in recent years, following an increase in positive Technology Appraisals published by NICE. The clinical pharmacy team has grown in response with the appointment of additional clinical pharmacist prescribers, but now needs senior strategic leadership to develop the service further.



Applicants who have started, but not yet completed the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) consultant pharmacist credentialling process and who can demonstrate significant progress towards approval may be considered for appointment to an interim non-consultant developmental role pending completion of RPS credentialling.

The postholder will provide strategic leadership for a high-quality professional clinical pharmacy team supporting breast cancer services, optimising access to medicines and improving the overall patient experience.

The post holder will work in collaboration withthe breast cancer disease group, theTrust’snetwork services division, multidisciplinary clinical and researcher colleagues,andthe Trust’s designated commercial and outsourced service providers to develop and deliver an efficient, high quality, professional and well-coordinated service capable of meeting patients’ clinical needs and all statutory, regulatory and NHS commissioning requirements relating to cancer services.

This will include provision of direct patient care to patients, as a non-medical prescriber with their own clinic caseload as agreed with the breast cancer clinical lead.

The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years.

We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.

The post is primarily structured around four main functions:

• Expert Professional Practice
• Leadership and Management
• Education, Training and mentoring
• Research, Evaluation and Service Development


Expert Professional Practice

To be recognised as the pharmacy professional lead and expert clinical practitioner in support of the breast cancer disease group

Lead expert pharmacy support including the development of trust policy, protocols and SOPs relating to SACT and breast cancer

To appropriately manage difficult and ambiguous problems, managing uncertainty, and to make decisions with limited information.

Responsible for the clinical management of a caseload of patients in the breast cancer disease group under the clinical supervision of the lead consultant clinical/medical oncologist


The Consultant Pharmacist will be an integral member of 2 different breast cancer clinics within the Trust that each occur on a weekly basis including:

1. Medical Oncology Breast Cancer clinic
The Consultant Pharmacist will be embedded within the medical oncology clinical team to review patients with early and advanced breast cancer. They will be responsible for a patient case load including new patients, prescribing SACT from cycle 1, consenting patients to treatment and managing those more complex patients through their treatment and will involve demonstration of effective critical thinking, clinical reasoning and decision making where there is uncertainty, competing and/or complex clinical issues.

2. Pan-alliance HER2 positive Early Breast Cancer Clinic (Thursday am)
The Consultant Pharmacist will be responsible for a patient case load and work within a Pan-Alliance centralised service managing patients with HER2 positive Early Breast Cancer across Greater Manchester and Cheshire. This will involve management of this patient cohort including undertaking new patient consultations, prescribing SACT from cycle 1, consenting patients to treatment, requesting and analysing appropriate pre/on-treatment assessments such as ECGs, Echocardiograms, Nuclear Medicine Glomerular Filtration rate estimation, CT and MRI scans as appropriate, reviewing patients throughout treatment, making treatment recommendations to General Practitioners, referring patients to alternative teams and services both within the organisation and across organisational boundaries ie: to surgical sites and discharging patients.

Fulfil the role of Consultant Pharmacist, providing leadership for the pharmaceutical aspects of SACT use in the Trust. Provide information and advice on therapeutic and cost-effectiveness measures and guide doctors and other prescribers in the composition of appropriate drug treatments for individual patients in accordance with guidance from NICE, Trust Policy and other guidelines.

Fulfil the role of expert pharmacy practitioner for patients requiring SACT therapy, developing and evaluating pharmaceutical care for patients across the Trust and beyond.

Whilst clinical screening of prescriptions is part of every pharmacist’s responsibility, the Consultant postholder will have a greater focus on training more junior pharmacists in the clinical screening of breast cancer prescriptions and expanding the role of pharmacy technicians as they embark on clinical screening as supported by the UK SACT passport. The Consultant will also play a major role in the development of clinical protocols and algorithms in support of the iCheck iQEMO Clinical Decision Support Systems and Artificial Intelligence screening project.

Additionally, the Consultant will act as an expert resource in field providing advice to pharmacists on treatment plans involving SACT in complex patients both within the Trust and at other satellite Trusts and nationally. They will support the development and expansion of clinical pharmacy technician screening in breast cancer and the development of enhanced technician roles within breast cancer clinics.

To practice as an Independent Prescriber as appropriate, within the organisation's policy for non-medical prescribing.

As a prescriber, provide a clinical service for patients requiring SACT agents and liaise with other colleagues where appropriate, including the provision of outpatient clinics as part of the MDT. This will require very advanced skills and may include complex caseloads.

As an independent prescriber, ensure appropriate treatment plans, provide dose adjustment, advice and prescriptions for SACT medication. Including recording relevant biochemistry results in patient medical records, recording action plans, and adjusting doses to account for renal or liver dysfunction or other toxicities. This may be for treatments with a narrow therapeutic range requiring therapeutic effect monitoring.

Complete referrals as appropriate to ascertain relevant information to inform treatment plans and holistic patient management.

To provide complex information and highly specialised advice to patients and their carers to support the use of SACT agents and other related medication as required, in an appropriate format tailored to their needs, including written and verbal information

Conduct consultations with patients and their carers ensuring clear and unambiguous communication to facilitate shared decision making and collaborative treatment plans.

Review prescriptions, challenge treatment choices and communicate highly complex drug and therapeutic information to senior clinicians, senior managers and other professionals in order to influence treatment options and ensure compliance with medicines legislation and avoid errors and side effects.

Participate in multidisciplinary/ pre-clinic meetings and provide highly specialist advice to senior clinicians on drug treatments for individual patients, applying critical analysis skills, professional knowledge and judgement where information is lacking or opinion is divided to influence medical consultants on the management of pharmaceutically complex cases, outside and beyond any national guidelines. Be able to conduct an open discussion when advice is challenged.

Implement new SACT treatment protocols for specialised disease group

Approve SACT regimens on chemotherapy prescribing systems.

Support and provide advice on clinical trials for breast cancer disease group patients

To ensure that all high-cost SACT in use for individual patients is commissioned for the indication in question (i.e. via cancer drug fund, NICE approvals, baseline NHS England commissioned), and provide advice on this to medical and nursing colleagues when required.

Provide all of the above clinical pharmacy services to delivery of SACT in outreach and peripheral satellite locations and homecare for patients in line with the strategic development of the network service for oncology. This may include both off-site working and remote support depending on the service requirements.

Support the disease group consultants to produce Drugs and Therapeutics Committee applications, SACT regimen protocols, drive clinical trials and provide education and training to pharmacy colleagues related to the disease group

Provide clinical supervision to other advanced pharmacists in the disease group and in support of other clinical specialties

Document any actions appropriately in the patients’ notes and ensure appropriate communication to other healthcare professionals.


Work in occasionally unpleasant and emotionally sensitive ward and outpatient conditions and interact with occasionally aggressive, emotional and distressed patients, carers and staff.

To ensure compliance with all relevant medicines legislation and professional standards

To ensure that patient and staff confidentiality is maintained at all times

Please refer to the attached Job Description for full duties and responsibilities






This advert closes on Thursday 10 Jul 2025

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