Closing date: 29 July 2026

Job summary
Are you an experienced pharmacy professional with a passion for delivering high-quality patient care and leading teams to success? We are looking for an exceptional Lead Dispensary Technician to play a key role in the safe, efficient, and patient-focused delivery of pharmacy services.

In this rewarding leadership position, you will oversee the day-to-day management of the dispensary, ensuring medicines are supplied accurately, safely, and in a timely manner. You will lead and develop a dedicated team, drive service improvements, support governance and quality standards, and work closely with multidisciplinary colleagues to enhance patient outcomes.

This is an exciting opportunity for a motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys solving problems, and is committed to continuous improvement. You will have the chance to shape dispensary services, influence operational excellence, and make a meaningful impact on both patients and staff.

If you are a strong leader with excellent organisational skills, a commitment to quality, and a desire to help develop the pharmacy workforce of the future, we would love to hear from you. Join us and be part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and outstanding patient care.

Main duties of the job
As Lead Dispensary Manager, you will provide operational leadership for the dispensary service, ensuring the safe, effective, and efficient supply of medicines across the organisation. You will lead and support a team of pharmacy technicians, dispensing assistants, and support staff, fostering a positive culture focused on quality, teamwork, and continuous improvement.

The role involves managing day-to-day dispensary operations, ensuring compliance with professional, legal, and governance standards while maintaining excellent patient and customer service. You will work closely with pharmacists, clinical teams, and other departments to optimise workflows, improve service delivery, and respond to changing organisational needs.

You will play a key role in workforce planning, recruitment, training, and staff development, ensuring the team has the skills and support required to deliver a high-performing service. The post holder will also contribute to the implementation of pharmacy initiatives, service improvements, and medication safety programmes, using data and performance metrics to drive operational excellence.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced pharmacy leader to influence the future direction of dispensary services, champion innovation, and support the delivery of outstanding care for patients and healthcare professionals.

About us
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is a large acute and specialised hospital trust that provides a range of local acute services to the residents of Worcestershire and more specialised services to a larger population in Herefordshire and beyond.

The Trust operates hospital-based services from three sites in Kidderminster, Redditch and Worcester

Our workforce is more than 7,000 strong, and our caring staff are recognised as providing good and outstanding patient-centred care. You could be one of them.

We are committed to recruiting the best people to work with us. Our values, which we ask all staff to demonstrate, underpin our everyday work and remain firmly at the heart of all we do.

Being open and honest

Ensuring people feel cared for

Showing respect to everyone

We are committed to developing a culture of continuous improvement by embedding the principles of our Improvement System.

We are proud to have achieved Timewise accreditation - this means we are committed to embedding flexible working within our organisation as a flex positive employer.

Person Specification
Skills and Knowledge
Essential

• Weighing, measuring, compounding, and medicine manufacturing and preparation skills, where accuracy is of the utmost importance.
• Proven ability to dispense medicines accurately without making errors.
• Proven ability to check medicines dispensed by others and to detect any errors that have been made.
• Standard key-board skills for using the Pharmacy Computer System, and other software, to prepare reports, analyses, label medicines etc.
• Ability to learn new technologies with minimum supervision.
• Ability to communicate complex ideas to non-technical staff.
• Skilled at using Microsoft Office to produce word-processed documents e.g. SOPs (MS Word), compile reports and plan work schedules (MS Excel), (MS Access) and prepare and deliver training presentations (MS Powerpoint).
• Skilled at using the internet and on-line information sources
• People management and change management skills
• Ability to react to and manage the changing situation within the service on a daily basis and to motivate and inform staff accordingly.
• Excellent time management skills
• Excellent communication and organisational skills
• Skilled at teaching and mentoring junior pharmacists, technical staff and students.
• Skilled at utilising resources cost-effectively.
• Standard key-board skills for using the Pharmacy Computer System, and other software, to prepare reports, analyses, label medicines etc
• Understanding of Government healthcare agenda and targets
• Experience of NHS working practice and the interdependencies of clinical support services
• Knowledge of quality assurance, performance management, and medicines management frameworks.

Experience
Essential

• Significant current experience of providing operational pharmacy services in an acute hospital trust setting.
• Significant recent experience of successfully supervising the technical services for a section of a large pharmacy department or a smaller team.
• Experience of organising and managing in a busy and potentially stressful environment.
• Proven experience of successfully supervising staff (including dealing with simple HR issues such as sickness, personal development reviews), implementing service improvements or change.
• Experience of working with healthcare IT systems and automation. E.g. EDS, DMS, automated ward medicine storage
• Experience in writing papers and reports

Desirable

• Recent experience of delivering a pharmacy technical service to wards
• Experience in providing training pre-registration pharmacy graduates and pharmacists
• Experience at representing pharmacy or a pharmacy team at Trust meetings/forums
• Experience in conducting audit

Qualifications
Essential

• NVQ Level 3 and BTEC in pharmaceutical science or equivalent.
• Registered with the GPhC
• Current in-date accreditation as a Checking Technician
• Meeting GPhC requirements for CPD

Desirable

• Medicines Management accredited/qualification
• Has undertaken a mentoring/coaching course
• Has undertaken leadership training

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).