Job summary
The post holder is a pharmacist who acts within their professional boundaries, supporting and working alongside a team of pharmacists in general practice, as part of a multidisciplinary team in a patient-facing role.

Main duties of the job
You will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within the practice and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy. You'll provide primary support to general practice staff on prescription and medication queries - supporting the repeat prescription system, dealing with acute prescription requests, and managing medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing.

You will provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement, manage aspects of the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services, and help the practice integrate with community and hospital pharmacy to improve patient outcomes and manage workload. You will be supported to develop your role towards becoming a non-medical prescriber.

About us
We're a well-established, friendly and forward-thinking group of practices covering the area of Bracknell, Crowthorne, Sandhurst and Owlsmoor. Our large, growing multidisciplinary team - including GPs, nurses, paramedic practitioners, clinical pharmacists, first contact physiotherapists, nursing associates, a mental health practitioner, social prescribers and care coordinators - works collaboratively to deliver high-quality, innovative and compassionate care. One of our practices is a training practice, and training is always supported. Whether you're newly qualified or an experienced pharmacist, you'll find an environment that is supportive, progressive and genuinely rewarding.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary £40,000 £52,000 per annum
• Structured support to develop your role, including working towards an Independent Prescriber (IP) qualification
• Regular in-house training and education sessions, supervision, and multi-professional learning opportunities
• Genuine support to develop clinical special interests, with dedicated time built into your role
• Company pension, sick pay and private medical insurance
• Flexitime, free flu jabs, free/on-site parking and employee discount
• Company events

Job responsibilities
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Patient-facing long-term condition clinics

• See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems requiring medicine optimisation (e.g. hypertension, asthma)
• Review the ongoing need for each medicine and monitoring needs, support patients with their medicines taking, and make appropriate recommendations to GPs for medicine improvement

Patient-facing clinical medication review

• Undertake clinical medication reviews and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GPs on prescribing and monitoring

Patient-facing care home medication reviews

• Undertake structured medication reviews and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacist, nurses or GPs
• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration

Patient-facing domiciliary clinical medication review

• Undertake structured medication reviews and produce recommendations for nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring
• Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences

Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments

• Manage a caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments, working within your scope of practice and limits of competence
• Signpost to community pharmacy and refer to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate

Medicines support (patient-facing and telephone)

• Provide patient-facing and telephone clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines

Medicine information to practice staff and patients

• Answer medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams and patients, suggesting and recommending solutions
• Provide follow-up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes

Unplanned hospital admissions

• Review use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews
• Put in place changes to reduce prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups

Management of medicines at discharge from hospital

• Reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, identifying and rectifying unexplained changes
• Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patients

Signposting

• Ensure patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate timeframe

Repeat prescribing

• Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy
• Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process, ensuring appropriate monitoring tests are in place

Risk stratification

• Identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared practice computer searches

Medicines quality improvement and safety

• Undertake clinical audits of prescribing, feedback results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team
• Implement changes to medicines resulting from MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and other local and national guidance

Guidelines, formulary and CQC

• Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy's RAG list and make recommendations to GPs
• Assist practices in maintaining a practice formulary and audit compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance
• Work with the practice team to ensure compliance with CQC standards where medicines are involved

Education, training and public health

• Provide education and training to the primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation
• Support public health campaigns and provide specialist knowledge on public health programmes

Interested?
We'd love to meet you for an informal visit or chat - come and see what makes The Health Triangle PCN different.

Contact:
Vonnie Phillips, Hiring Manager
Email: vonnie.phillips@nhs.net

Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential

• Degree in Pharmacy, MPharm/ BPharm
• GPhC Registered
• IP Qualified or working towards an IP qualification
• Full driving licence

Desirable

• Member of the RPS
• Clinical Diploma
• Minor Ailments qualification
• Clinical systems trained (EMIS)

Experience
Essential

• General practice experience and understanding of medicines optimisation roles

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.

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