Clinical Pharmacist - Saxonbrook Medical Centre

Post holder will be employed by Saxonbrook Medical Centre.

Responsible to: GP Partners

Proposed salary: approx. £41,000 - £49,500 per annum dependent on experience (pro rata)

Hours of work: 37.5 hours per week

Base: Saxonbrook Medical Centre, Maidenbower Square, Maidenbower, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 7QH. We also operate from other sites within Crawley.

About Saxonbrook Medical Surgery

Saxonbrook Medical is a 20,000 patient population practice serving our community over two sites. The team is comprised of Doctors, Physician Associates, Paramedics, Pharmacists, Nurses and Healthcare Assistants all supported by a strong administrative team. We work together as a team to provide the best care possible to our community. We are a teaching Practice who welcome a number of trainees into the Practice including Doctors, Student Physician Associates and Student Nurses and also support the progress and development of our employees.

We work within a local Primary Care Network, working collaboratively with Social Prescribers, Pharmacists and First Contact Practitioners.

We offer the NHS Pension Scheme. Clinical staff receive 25 days annual leave + bank holidays pro rata. There is also a provision for study leave.

We also have a fantastic employee assistance programme available which can support with a whole array of things as well as a wellness app. 

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. In this role they will be supported by a Senior Clinical Pharmacist and a GP who will develop, manage and mentor them.

The post holder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. The post holder will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within the practice and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy.

The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with regards to prescription and medication queries. They will help support the repeat prescription system, deal with acute prescription requests, and medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing, providing expertise in clinical medicines advice while addressing both public and social care needs of patient in the GP practice.

The post holder will provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement, manage some aspects of the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services and contribute to the delivery of the local medicine’s optimisation strategy. 

The post holder will ensure that the practice integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage workload. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within general practice. 

Primary duties and areas of responsibility

From start of post:

• See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. COPD, asthma).
• Review the on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation). Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.
• Assist with QOF (Quality and Outcomes Framework) targets.
• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
• Provide medication review services with patients in the Practice and during domiciliary visits to the local nursing home.
• Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
• Review medications for newly registered patients.
• Provide telephone support for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• Act as a source of medicines information for all of the practice team and patients, (such as around doses, side effects, adverse events, possible alternatives (i.e. around out of stocks), suggesting and recommending solutions.
• To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and community pharmacists 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 patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).
• Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the right care, ensuring that the addition of the pharmacist to the clinical team results in a reduction in workload for other clinicians.
• Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy in line with the recommendations Medicines Management Team.
• 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.
• Support the contractual requirements to support frail patients with their medication including medication review and some patient identification (i.e. patients with problematic polypharmacy).
• Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team.
• Work with MMT to support the implementation of local and national guidelines including NICE etc.
• Liaise with hospital colleagues where prescribing needs to be returned to specialists.
• Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
• Produce pharmacy / prescribing newsletters or bulletins on a quarterly basis.
• Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
• To support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.
• Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
• Review and implement safe prescribing systems for vulnerable patients, improving compliance.

Role may evolve to include:

• Reviewing 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.
• Managing caseload of patients with common / minor / self-limiting ailments.
• Carry out face-to-face and/or telephone consultations with patients with minor illnesses.
• Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate.
• Administer influenza and travel vaccines.
• Line manage/supervise the dispensary staff in accordance with current practice policy.

Person Specification

Professional Registration

Essential

• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council

Desirable

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

Qualifications

Essential

• Undergraduate degree in Pharmacy (MPharm)

Desirable

• Clinical Diploma
• Postgraduate Certificate in Pharmacy Practice
• Independent Prescriber

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 2 years’ experience post-qualification
• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based medicine and healthcare
• Good knowledge of service developments in medicines, prescribing, NHS policy and other relevant policy directives
• Good understanding of Primary Care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing
• Ability to solve problems effectively and timely and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and when to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
• Excellent understanding and implementation of legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct
• Good understanding of patient centred care and impact on care quality and outcomes
• Good understanding of patients’ role in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidance
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients)
• Ability to plan, prioritise, manage, monitor, advise and review clinical and general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions
• Good IT skills
• Ability to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• Ability to work under pressure and challenging situations to meet deadlines
• Produce timely and informative reports
• Experience of multi-disciplinary team working
• Experience of committees/working groups
• Drug information experience
• Experience in writing complex and high quality reports
• Experience in audit, research and analysis of highly complex information related to improving clinical quality

Desirable

• Experience in supervising staff
• Experience of independent patient consultation, review and recommendations/prescribing

Other

Essential

• Self-motivation
• Adaptable

Research and Evaluation

Essential

• Demonstrates ability to critically evaluate and review literature
• Demonstrates ability to identify where there is a gap in the evidence base to support practice
• Demonstrates ability to generate evidence suitable for presentation at local level
• Demonstrates ability to apply the research evidence base into working practice
• Demonstrates understanding of the principles of research governance
• Demonstrates ability to work as a member of the research team

Leadership

Essential

• Demonstrates understanding of the Pharmacy role in governance and is able to implement this appropriately within the workplace
• Demonstrates understanding of, and contributes to organisational vision
• Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service
• Reviews progress and develops clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others
• Demonstrates ability to motivate self to achieve goals

Management

Essential

• Demonstrates understanding of the implications of national priorities for the team and/or service
• Demonstrates understanding of the process for effective resource utilisation
• Demonstrates understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice

Desirable

• Demonstrates ability to identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol

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.