Job summary
An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and enthusiastic mental health pharmacist to join Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) as a Principal Clinical Pharmacist - Division Lead for our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Community Perinatal Mental Health Service and Mother & Baby Unit.

This is a senior leadership role within the Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation Team, providing strategic, clinical and operational leadership across a diverse portfolio of specialist services. The post holder will lead the development and delivery of high-quality, evidence-based and patient-centred pharmacy services, ensuring the safe and effective use of medicines across both inpatient and community settings.

The successful candidate will work closely with senior clinicians, managers and multidisciplinary teams to influence prescribing practice, improve patient outcomes and drive medicines optimisation initiatives across the service.

This is an excellent opportunity for a pharmacist looking to progress their career within specialist mental health services whilst contributing to innovative service development and quality improvement programmes.

Main duties of the job
As a Divisional Lead Pharmacist, you will:

• Provide highly specialist clinical pharmacy expertise in mental health, learning disabilities and forensic services
• Lead and develop pharmacy services across assigned divisions, ensuring high-quality, evidence-based and cost-effective medicines use
• Influence prescribing practice and contribute to Trust-wide medicines optimisation strategy and governance
• Use Independent Prescribing skills (where qualified) within agreed scopes and Trust policy
• Support medicines safety through incident review, learning, audit and quality improvement initiatives
• Line manage and develop Band 6/7 pharmacists and other pharmacy staff, fostering a strong learning culture
• Deliver and oversee education and training for pharmacists, technicians and wider healthcare professionals
• Contribute to policy development, formulary management and Trust committees (e.g. Drugs & Therapeutics)
• Work collaboratively across services and systems to support safe and seamless transfer of care

About us
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust is one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from the Care Quality Commission

Our family of over 4,000 members of staff provide health and social care for people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. Everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout:

Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.

In return, we can offer you:

• leadership and management training opportunities
• 5% on top of basic salary high cost allowance supplement (subject to a minimum and a maximum payment pro rata)
• 27 days holiday rising to 33 days (depending on NHS Trust service) plus bank holidays (pro rata where applicable)
• One of the UK's best pension schemes
• Free Pilates lessons
• Comprehensive health and wellbeing services
• Special leave for family and personal reasons
• NHS Car Lease Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme

Our staff survey results tell a story of highly engaged, motivated, passionate people working at HPFT. The survey has shown that staff overwhelmingly believe that their role makes a difference to service users, to the extent that HPFT had the best score nationally for this question.

Details
Date posted: 13 August 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 8a
Salary: £59,798 to £67,020 a year
per annum, pro rata (5% HCAS Included)
Contract: Fixed term
Duration: 12 months
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: 367-CORP-101455-A
Job locations: Pharmacy, Kingfisher Court, Kingsley Green, Radlett, Hertfordshire. WD7 9FB
Kingsley Green
Radlett
WD7 9FB
United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

• To work with the Chief Pharmacist and a team of clinical pharmacists and technicians to provide and support the integrated delivery of pharmaceutical care initiatives to patients with mental and physical health needs and learning disabilities in identified areas of HPFT to ensure safe, appropriate and cost-effective use of medicines.
• To provide highly specialist pharmaceutical advice concerning the care and treatment of service users in Mental Health (including Forensics) and Learning Disabilities Services and to promote safe, effective and evidence-based cost effective use of medicines within the Trust.
• To actively lead the provision and development of pharmaceutical services to a specific division.
• To provide highly specific advice to clinical team members on the management of complex medicines related issues, such as complex drug interactions, medicines use in pregnancy, unlicensed/off-label use of medicines etc.
• To provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where developed persuasive, motivational, negotiating, training, empathetic or re-assurance skills are required. This may be because agreement or co-operation is required or because there are barriers to understanding. This may also involve presenting complex, sensitive or contentious information to a large group of staff, service users or carers.
• To work as part of a multidisciplinary team to provide clinical pharmaceutical support to designated areas in order to maximise benefits and minimise risk to service users. This will include medicines reconciliation, prescription review, medication reviews, identification and management of drug interactions and adverse effects, advice on clinical monitoring, medicines information, advising on supply problems, compliance with legislation, compliance with Trust policies and guidelines and participation in multidisciplinary team meetings where appropriate.

For a more detailed description, please see attached job description and person specification. For more information contact Darshni Haria (current post holder), darshni.haria@nhs.net or Georgia Michael, g.michael@nhs.net

Person Specification
QUALIFICATIONS/EDUCATION/TRAINING
Essential

• BPharm / MPharm / BSc Pharmacy
• Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) (no restrictions)
• Postgraduate clinical pharmacy certificate/ diploma or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrates own CPD record/ or documented CPD

Desirable

• Postgraduate Certificate/diploma in Psychiatric Therapeutics or equivalent experience
• Postgraduate diploma in Advanced Clinical Practice
• Leadership or Management Qualification
• Independent prescribing qualification (or working towards)
• Member of the RPS Education and Standards Committee
• Post-registration Foundation or Core advanced credentialed with RPS

EXPERIENCE
Essential

• Experience of working in a secondary care setting, (demonstrable post qualification hospital pharmacy practice)
• Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team
• Evidence of involvement in clinical pharmacy provision and in operational management
• Writing and reviewing of policies, guidelines, and procedures
• Documented evidence of completed audit work and research practice
• Good, broad clinical knowledge and ability to apply to a ward, community and dispensary setting
• Experience in managing workload

Desirable

• Experience of working as a member of a multidisciplinary team in mental health and learning disabilities
• Evidence of education, training, performance management and development of staff
• Good management skills - including recruitment, supervision, and appraisals
• Experience showing leadership skills or equivalent
• Managing quality and cost effectiveness initiatives
• Experience in incident analysis and investigation
• Awareness of current issues facing the NHS
• Experience of project management
• Experience of carrying out clinical supervision
• Experience of chairing committees

SKILLS / COMMUNICATION
Essential

• Advanced IT skills and comprehensive use of Microsoft office including power point and excel
• An ability to organise and prioritise own workload and that of others
• An ability to lead, inspire and motivate a team
• Engaging, compassionate and caring communication skills when dealing with patients/family/carers on complex/sensitive issues
• Experience of delivering training to staff
• Highly developed physical skills in dispensing, preparing, and checking of medicines involving a high level of accuracy.
• English language competency sufficient to communicate effectively with all staff and deliver education sessions in an appropriate form
• Advanced computer, keyboard and mouse skills
• Good interpersonal skills
• Confident, able to influence and assertive when dealing with other professionals.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
• Team player with leadership skills
• Able to prioritise and meet deadlines
• Demonstrates empathy towards client groups
• Shows initiative and has well-developed problemsolving skills
• Demonstrates attention to detail, accuracy, and numeracy skills

Desirable

• Ability to analyse highly complex information, both clinical, financial, and managerial

KNOWLEDGE
Essential

• Advanced theoretical and technical, clinical and pharmaceutical knowledge relating to the promotion of high quality, effective and cost-efficient use of medicines, including a wide range of work procedures and practices
• An awareness of NHS Plan, and clinical governance priorities
• Good knowledge of all medicines legislation relating to the supply and storage of medicines

ABILITY
Essential

• Able to deal with conflicting demands on workload and frequent interruptions
• Ability to work under pressure
• Able to influence other professionals
• Able to communicate with service users
• Able to impart complex information in a manner understandable to junior staff and students.

ANALYTICAL SKILLS
Essential

• Able to make judgements involving complex facts or situations which require analysis, interpretation, and comparison of a range of options
• Able to critically appraise clinical trial data and research papers.

PHYSICAL EFFORT
Essential

• Moving handling of laptop and other materials
• Driving across Hertfordshire to different bases/units
• Able to work late duties/ bank holidays/weekends as per rota/take part in annual stock take

MENTAL EFFORT
Essential

• The job will require frequent use of VDU equipment every day and intense concentration in a sometimes-noisy open plan office environment
• The post holder may encounter challenging/hostile service users when visiting the mental health units
• Communication of complex information about medicines regarding individual service users within own organisation and across other organisations for example commissioning organisations, acute trusts, or community pharmacy

VALUES/MOTIVATIONAL/PERSONAL QUALITIES /DIVERSITY
Essential

• Welcoming/Kind/Positive/Respectful/Professional

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

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: Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
Address: Pharmacy, Kingfisher Court, Kingsley Green, Radlett, Hertfordshire. WD7 9FB
Kingsley Green
Radlett
WD7 9FB
United Kingdom
Employer's website: https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/careers/ (Opens in a new tab)

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Deputy Chief Pharmacist
Georgia Michael
g.michael@nhs.net
07586492813

Supporting documents
Privacy notice
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust's privacy notice (opens in a new tab)

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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.
Applicants must have current UK professional registration.