Senior Primary Care Clinical Pharmacist

Job summary

This is an excitingopportunity for the successful candidate to support a wide range of patients ofall ages. This post is part of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme forPrimary Care Networks funded by NHS England.

The successfulcandidate will be an experienced pharmacist, who acts within their professionalboundaries and has completed the CPPE pathway. They will work as part of amulti-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role; take responsibility for areasof chronic disease management within the practice and undertake clinicalmedication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy. Inparticular, older adults, people in residential care homes and those withmultiple co-morbidities.

Main duties of the job

The successfulcandidate will provide support to general practice staff with regards toprescription and medication queries. They will help support the repeatprescriptions system, deal with acute prescription requests, medicinereconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing. They willprovide expertise in clinical medicines advice whilst addressing both publicand social care needs of patients registered with the practice.

The successfulcandidate will provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation andquality improvement, manage some aspects of the quality and outcomes frameworkand enhanced services and contribute to the delivery of the local medicinesoptimisation strategy. They will ensure that the practice integrates withcommunity and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patientoutcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage workload.

This role ispivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies sorequires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within generalpractice.

About us

Alliance for Better Care CIC is a GP Federation that unites 47 NHS GPpractices across 12 Primary Care Networks in Sussex and Surrey. We support ourPrimary Care colleagues as well as their patients, to transform how healthcareis managed within the community. As a membership organisation, our focus is to work in partnership with ourmembers and help them to improve the provision of General Practices in thelocal area. We work with and listen to our GP Practices, PCNs, Hospitals, CommunityOrganisations and the Third Sector. These vital partnerships ensure that,together, we deliver a truly integrated approach that offers the support andexpertise needed to effectively serve our communities.

Crawley Care Collaborative PrimaryCare Network is an NHS Collaboration between four GP Practices - Bridge MedicalCentre, Langley Corner Surgery, Leacroft Medical Practice and Southgate MedicalGroup - working together to provide enhanced access services.

Our Primary Care Network builds on the existing primary careservices and enables a greater provision of proactive, personalised and moreintegrated health and social care. We are supported by practitioners inadditional roles who allow us to create bespoke multi-disciplinary teams basedon the needs of our local population. Byworking together with local community services, this allows us to make supportavailable to people where it is most needed.

Job description

Job responsibilities

From start of post:

See patients in multimorbidityclinics and in partnership with primary healthcare colleagues and implementimprovements to patientsmedicines, including de-prescribing. Manage own case load and run long-termcondition clinics where responsible for prescribing as an independentprescriber for conditions where medicines have a large component ( medicineoptimisation for stable angina symptom control, warfarin monitoring and doseadjustment for patients requiring longterm anticoagulants). Review the on-going needfor each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to supportpatients with their medicines ensuring they get the best use of their medicines( medicines optimisation). Whilst carrying out the above ensure documentappropriately to support achievement of relevant QOF targets. Undertake clinical medication reviews withpatients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement ownprescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevantmonitoring tests. Future potential to manage own caseload of carehome residents. Support and work with CCG Medicines Management (MM) Team toundertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidityand polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (if an independentprescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests. Provide patient facing clinics for those withquestions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice. Provide telephone support for patients withquestions, queries and concerns about their medicines. Act as a source of medicines information for allof the practice team and patients, (such as around doses, side effects, adverseevents, possible alternatives, around out of stocks). Suggesting andrecommending solutions. To reconcile medicines following discharge fromhospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying andrectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and communitypharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge.Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to highriskgroups of patients ( those with medicine compliance aids or those in carehomes). Work in partnership with hospital and local provider colleagues (care of the elderly doctors and clinical pharmacists) to proactively managepatients at high risk of medicine related problems before they are dischargedto ensure continuity of care. Managing caseload of patients withcommon/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within scope of practice andlimits of competence. Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs orother healthcare professionals where appropriate. Manage own caseload for patients and diagnosepeople with long term ailments while remaining within scope of practice andlimits of competence. Referring to GP and/or other healthcare professionalswhere appropriate. Ensure that patients are referred to theappropriate healthcare professional for the right care. Ensuring that theaddition of the pharmacist to the clinical team results in a reduction inworkload for other clinicians. Work with case managers, multidisciplinary(health and social care) review teams, hospital colleagues and virtual wardteams to manage medicines-related risk for readmission and patient harm.Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-riskpatient groups. Produce and implement a practice repeatprescribing policy in line with the recommendations from the MedicinesManagement Team (MMT), implement the practices repeat prescribing policy.Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patientrequests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review datesand flagging up those needing a review. Ensure patients have appropriatemonitoring tests in place when required. Identify national and local policy and guidancethat affects patient safety through the use of medicines, including MHRAalerts, product withdrawals and emerging evidence form clinical trials. Managethe process of implementing changes to medicines and guidance forpractitioners. Take a leading role in the contractualrequirements to support frail patients with their medication includingmedication review and patient identification ( patients with problematicpolypharmacy) Work with CCG MMT to implement local andnational guidelines including NICE etc. Liaise with hospital colleagues whereprescribing needs to be returned to specialists. Provide education and training to primaryhealthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation. Provide training tovisiting medical, nursing, pharmacy and other healthcare students whereappropriate. Work with the general practice team to ensurethe practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.Undertake risk assessment and ensure compliance with medicines legislation. To support public health campaigns. To providespecialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the generalpublic.

Role may evolve to include:

Manage own caseload of vulnerable houseboundpatients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines.Implement own prescribing changes (if an independent prescriber) and orderingof monitoring tests. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary caseconferences. Identifying key areas of need for vulnerable patients andformulating care plans. Working with colleagues, identify and provideleadership on areas of prescribing and medicines optimisation. Conduct clinicalaudits and medicine optimisation projects or work with colleagues such as GPregistrars, practice managers etc., feedback the results and implement changesin conjunction with the practice team. Present results and provide leadershipon suggested changes. Contribute to national and local research initiatives. Ensure that patients are referred to theappropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within anappropriate period of time pathology test results, common/minor ailments,acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Mandatory registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council Completion of an undergraduate degree in pharmacy and registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council. Completed CPPE course

Desirable

Completed independent prescribing qualification

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

Understanding of the wider determinants of health, including social, economic and environmental factors and their impact on communities An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports Able to plan, manage, monitor and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions

Desirable

In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare

Personal Qualities & Attributes

Essential

Commitment to reducing health inequalities and proactively working to reach people from all communities Able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when needed Ability to organise, plan and prioritise on own initiative, including when under pressure and meeting deadlines High level of written and oral communication Ability to work flexibly and enthusiastically within a team or on own initiative

Desirable

Able to provide leadership and maintain effective working relationships and to promote collaborative practice with all colleagues

Experience

Essential

Experience and an awareness of the breadth of common acute and long-terms conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice

Desirable

Minimum of 4 years post qualifying experience Demonstrates experience managing other pharmacists and pharmacist technicians Experience of partnership/collaborative working and of building relationships across a variety of organisations

Other

Essential

Meets DBS reference standards and has a clear criminal record Safeguarding and other mandatory training such as BLS Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit people in their own homes

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