Band 8B Principal Pharmacist

Job summary

Job title - Principal Pharmacist 8b - Medicine (maternity leave cover)

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and capable pharmacist to lead the pharmacy service provided to medicine and medical specialities. Overseeing the pharmacy service provided to the medical wards including Acute Medical Unit and Adult Assessment Unit, and support to ED, TREAT, Smoking Cessation, and Thoracic services, you will be responsible for ensuring a high standard of medicines reconciliation, optimising the use of medicines and delivering on rapid turnaround of medicines for discharge. You will also lead the service provision to Dermatology, Rheumatology and Immunology and play a key role in ensuring appropriate funding for high-cost drugs in these areas. You will manage a large pharmacy team and be responsible for the ongoing delivery of the service. You will be the trust Pharmacy lead for immunoglobulins and secretary for the trust Immunoglobulin Assessment Panel (IAP).

You will be an experienced and highly motivated pharmacist, with a background in delivering services to medical patients and a proven track record of quality improvement and service development, excellent communication skills and a patient-centred attitude. You should ideally have some experience of managing a team of pharmacists as well as an understanding of funding streams for medicines and be able to manage own and others' workload for this high turnover speciality.

Main duties of the job

To lead the clinical pharmacy service provided to acute medicine and the specialities of rheumatology, dermatology and immunology.

To act as the lead pharmacist for immunoglobulins for the trust and act as the secretary for the trust's IVIG Committee

To work with the relevant stakeholders within the trust, ICS and NHS England to develop new pathways for patient care within medicine / medical specialities

To oversee the provision of a ward based clinical pharmacy service including medicines reconciliation and rapid turnaround of discharge prescriptions

To ensure the cost effective use of drugs including ensuring appropriate funding is in place for high cost drugs

Development and implementation of local and national guidelines including any NICE appraised drugs

Managing a large pharmacy team including recruitment and selection, setting of objectives and appraisals.

Training of pharmacy staff and other healthcare professionals within medicine

About us

The Royal Free London NHS Trust is one of the largest in the UK, with around 10,000 staff serving million patients. It comprises Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital and more than 30 services in the community. This large-scale organisation provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to continue our pioneering work, particularly in finding ways to deliver even better care to our patients. With many specialities including cancer, renal, liver, oncology, infectious disease, haemophilia and scleroderma which are underpinned by a strong research agenda, the Royal Free is renowned for providing excellent patient care.

The Pharmacy department is a friendly, progressive and expanding unit dedicated to providing the highest standards of pharmaceutical care and service across all three sites, with clinical teams across many different specialities including renal, liver, oncology, paediatrics, intensive care, medicine and surgery. The pharmacy department have recently played a pivotal role in the implementation of electronic prescribing system and have proposals in place for the development of more consultant and independent prescribing pharmacists. The medicine pharmacy team provide a responsive pharmacy service to the medical wards including the Acute Medicine Unit and Adult Assessment Unit.

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. CLINICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

To lead the provision and development of a high quality clinical pharmacy service as part of the multidisciplinary team to patients within the relevant specialties, to ensure maximum efficacy, safety and economic drug use and to demonstrate professional accountability to enhance patient care. The responsibilities will include:

Active participation at consultant ward rounds and multidisciplinary team meetings

Demonstration of expert specialist knowledge in the field of medicine

Delivery of a high quality, specialist ward based pharmacy service. This involves taking medication histories from patients admitted to the medical wards, clarifying inconsistencies with the patients GP or Community Pharmacist, ensuring appropriate use of patients own drugs brought from home, drug supply, review of highly complex medication regimens, clarification of medication changes made during inpatient stay by liaising with the medical team, drug interaction and adverse drug reaction monitoring, discharge planning and rapid turnaround of TTAs, full medication counselling to patients, and assessment for appropriateness of compliance aids to assist patients medication needs.

Provision of expert prescribing advice in the specialist area, including selection, adverse events and dosage adjustment in specialist areas where limited or conflicting information is available. This advice may be challenged.

Maintenance and evaluation of the near to patient medicines management project

Introduction of patient medication self-administration schemes in selected areas in order to promote patient compliance, understanding and responsibility of their medicines.

Proactively identifying medicines management issues, and preparing pharmaceutical care plans to address the issues identified for inpatients

Liaising with other ward pharmacists to ensure continuity of medicines management, and to implement systems for effective medication transfer between wards

Promotion of high quality cost-effective prescribing

Leading the development and ensuring adherence to evidence based prescribing guidelines / protocols within medicine.

Making evidence based decisions, in partnership with patients and other professionals within the specialist area

Development and review of Patient Group Directions

Development and review of Shared Care guidelines

To participate in drug usage reviews

Development of relevant patient information leaflets which complement licensed product information

To improve medicines management at the point of discharge, and to contribute to the protocols and guidelines on electronic discharge prescribing.

To organise and maintain the seamless transition of medicines supply from secondary to primary care for patients who are candidates for home delivery schemes or shared care, including validation of this data with other departments.

To liaise and work with other specialist pharmacists to share the best practice, to strengthen patient focused pharmaceutical care.

To practice as a non-medical prescriber.

To audit the service provided with the aim of improving the service provided by the pharmacy medicine team

2. RESPONSIBILITY FOR PATIENTS

To lead in the planning and organising of a clinical pharmacy service to patients in the relevant specialties

To oversee the safe prescribing and supply of medicines for the specialties patients in the Planned Investigation and Treatment Unit (PITU)

To deal effectively with situations where medication errors have occurred, including liaising directly with patients and staff concerned.

To lead in responding to complaints from patients and the public in relation to medicines management issues within the specialist area as required.

Communication of highly complex pharmaceutical information, according to the level of understanding, direct to patients/carers and health professionals.

To deliver a high quality and comprehensive medicines counselling service to patients and/or their relatives on all aspects of their pharmaceutical care including specialist and unlicensed drugs. To overcome communication barriers through the use of interpreters or other forms of communication.

To participate in patient education events and provide medicines expertise

3. RESPONSIBILITY FOR POLICY AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT

To lead on the continuing development of policies and procedures to ensure that the relevant divisions comply with existing legal requirements and best practice in the field of Medicine and requirements of the Care Quality Commission.

To work with clinicians and managers to develop pharmacy elements of patient care pathways

In conjunction with the clinicians and managers, ensure compliance with CQC medicines related outcomes, NICE technology appraisals and other government initiatives and national policy.

To lead on the production and implementation of business plans for the development of the pharmacy service provided to medicine and medical specialities.

To develop and collect data on KPIs relating to medicine prescribing within the specialist area and prepare regular reports for dissemination to relevant committees and specialties

To be an active member of the senior pharmacy team and participate in the development and implementation of the Trust Pharmacy strategy

To be the Pharmacy lead for the trusts service improvement programme including the Clinical Practice Groups (CPGs)

To work with the relevant stakeholders within the trust, ICS and NHS England to develop new pathways for patient care within medicine / medical specialties

4. RESPONSIBILITY FOR FINANCIAL AND PHYSICAL RESOURCES

Effective control of expenditure on high cost drugs including liaising with commissioners and clinicians to ensure funding is in place prior to dispensing of high cost drugs, including BlueTeq and individual funding requests To ensure information for all patients receiving high cost drugs are recorded on the internal high cost drugs database and to monitor usage and ensure appropriate reviews are completed.

To assist in the management and monitoring of the drug budget within the divisions. Responsibilities will include:

- Forecasting new drug developments and identifying changes in prescribing practice that may impact on the drugs budget, both locally and at network level.

- Provision of expert advice to the Head of Pharmaceutical Services on new cost pressure developments within the service and lead on the production of the relevant sections of the annual pharmacy department drug cost pressure document applicable to the responsible specialties.

Provision of detailed evaluated drug expenditure reports to the Divisional Finance Manager, Clinical Director and Operations Manager for the relevant specialties

Development and implementation of drug cost saving strategies

Interpreting published data on new drugs for use within the relevant specialties and to prepare evaluations and present applications to the Drugs and Therapeutics or Joint Formulary Committees.

To oversee the delivery of homecare services within the specialist areas

To work collaboratively with the CMU, LPP and NHS England in the management of immunoglobulin supply

See full JD for further details.

Person Specification

Education & professional Qualifications

Essential

MPharm or equivalent Registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) Post graduate diploma in pharmacy practice or equivalent Non-medical prescriber

Desirable

Advanced qualification in specialist area Member of RPS

Royal Free World Class Values

Essential

Demonstrable ability to meet the Trust Values

Experience

Essential

Significant demonstrable experience of working in hospital based pharmacy, and significant experience as a specialist clinical pharmacist and some experience of working withing medicine/medical specialties Experience working with high cost drugs and commissioning processes Experience working as a Band 7/8a hospital pharmacist Experience of managing & leading staff and projects Experience of managing change and leading service developments Experience of managing and analysing drug expenditure. Experience of writing / implementing clinical guidelines and government directives Experience of multidisciplinary working Evidence of clinical audit/drug evaluation/practice research and the promotion of evidence based practice Experience of appraising staff and giving feedback Experience in delivering education and training. Experience as a clinical pharmacy tutor

Desirable

Experience of working in clinics and/or prescribing and monitoring medicines

Skills and aptitudes

Essential

Excellent written and verbal communication skills Excellent interpersonal skills when dealing with staff and patients Good presentation skills Excellent teaching and training skills Ability to carry out day to day responsibilities and deal effectively with unpredictable/acute demands. Ability to justify and reason any advice given should this be challenged Ability to communicate with patients/carers and staff of all levels. Good negotiation skills and the ability to influence senior pharmacy and medical staff, and the management team Ability to manage time, people and resources to deliver timely outcomes Ability to work alone and a part of a team Ability to work accurately under pressure. Ability to integrate in a multidisciplinary forum. Ability to manage difficult and ambiguous situations Demonstrates innovation and strategic thinking Ability to motivate and act as a role model Demonstrates initiative particularly in relation to problem solving. Ability to identify and implement best practice Ability to identify and manage risk Demonstrates expert clinical knowledge and pharmaceutical care skills Critical appraisal skills Expert level of clinical reasoning and judgement Ability to take full responsibility for and be accountable for own actions Ability to contribute to business plans, policies and clinical protocols Understanding of clinical risk and clinical governance Understanding of current national standards, guidelines and service delivery issues relevant to patients in Medicine Understanding of NHS national and local priorities Understanding of processes and commissioning of high cost drugs Demonstrates a whole-system patient-focussed approach to work Computer literate (including word processing, email & use of internet. Preferably knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages)

Desirable

Undertakes own research

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