Clinical Pharmacist inSale inSale PUBLISHED WED 16 OCT 2024

As a Clinical Pharmacist you will be an integral part of Firsway Health Centre and our medicines management team responsible for assisting and participating in the strategic development of Medicines Management services for Firsway health Centre, ensuring a safe and effective clinical medicines management service to all clinical stakeholders including contribution to the development, implementation and monitoring of performance standards for this service. You will also provide a comprehensive medicines information and advice service in response to queries from Health professionals, the public, practice staff, patients and carers (key stakeholders).

• Conducting face-to-face and telephone consultations with patients to assess their medication needs and provide appropriate advice.

• Working within an agreed appointment structure, managed by our reception team, which will include 10- and 20-minute appointments and allotted administration time

• Working with the Clinical Quality and Safety Lead GP to implement quality, safety, and performance standards for the practice and supporting our medicines team to audit medication to ensure high quality and safety.

• Managing complex medication regimens which may include polypharmacy, long-term condition disease management (e.g., heart failure, blood pressure, thyroxine management), and reviewing habit-forming drug regimens while developing treatment plans to reduce usage where appropriate.

• Working with the Clinical Quality and Safety Lead GP to implement quality, safety, and performance standards for the practice and supporting our medicines team to audit medication to ensure high quality and safety.

• Communication / key relationships

• Analytical and judgement skills

• Responsibility for patient care

• Responsibility for training / sharing best practice

About us

Communication / key relationships

Communicate sensitive, contentious and occasionally highly complex medicines related information and advice on a variety of different levels, via various media and other formats to patients, carers, GPs and other members of the primary health care team.

Analytical and judgement skills

• Critically appraise, analyse, interpret and evaluate specialist medicine related information and evidence e.g. clinical trials using clinical and professional judgement. This involves understanding, interpreting and assessing the data accurately to inform decisions and advice given.

• Provide specialised pharmaceutical advice on a day to day basis in all aspects of prescribing, governance and medicines management to key stakeholders.

Responsibility for patient care

• Work as a member of the GP practice team clinically reviewing patients notes, interpreting prescriptions for drug choice, dosage, interactions, formulary issues, legality, accuracy and make interventions as necessary

Provide specialised pharmaceutical advice to key stakeholders in order to ensure the appropriateness of medicines use by evaluating the patients clinical condition, planning appropriate interventions, agreeing best outcome in partnership with the patient, agreeing an action plan with the doctors and implementing change. This may involve face-to-face or telephone consultation with the patient or involve audit work focusing on a particular area of prescribing.

• Ensure compliance with medicines legislation and related Firsway Health Centre e.g. prescribing and administration of drugs, formulary issues, use of unlicensed drugs, controlled drugs regulations.
• Ensure that any drug recalls/alerts are actioned, including discussion with the relevant medical staff and informing patients as necessary.

Responsibility for policy and service development and research development

• Assist our GPs to achieve a pattern of prescribing which promotes safe, high quality rational use of medicines and encourages the development of cost effective evidence based prescribing policies.

• Work with practice staff to develop practice-specific repeat prescribing policies and protocols.

• Formulate and support work within the practice annual prescribing action plans with the agreement of GPs and our Practice Manager. These plans are based on local or national guidelines or following the outcome of a significant event.
• Support the implementation and use of the GMMMG formulary within the practice and to promote and support high quality, cost effective, evidence based prescribing.

• Advise on the safe and secure handling of medicines including Controlled Drugs.
• Identify, plan, develop, lead on and deliver clinical audits and protocols for specific therapeutic areas and stimulate, undertake and/or support practice based research.

Responsibility for training / sharing best practice

• To contribute to the training and education of other practice staff (involving GPs, nurses, practice staff). Responsibility involves identifying needs, then developing, facilitating and personally delivering training sessions.

Freedom to act

• Works independently on own initiative, within professional and defined organisational boundaries, and is responsible and accountable for own actions.
• Acts on own professional judgement on a daily basis with regard to making recommendations in respect of medicines management.
• Works to agreed timescales with minimum supervision
• Plans and prioritises own workload within each practice to ensure an equitable service across all designated Practices.
• Initiates and manages meetings with prescribers and other practice staff and make records and produce reports as appropriate.

Responsibility for information resources

• To record and provide activity reports to managers as required.

• To use practice based computerised clinical systems to input necessary clinical information into specialist databases, clinical records and templates and the internet and specialised on line databases to retrieve pharmaceutical information.