About this role
Job summary
Uppingham Surgery is looking to recruit a Clinical Pharmacist with excellent clinical skills, warmth and a commitment to delivering high-quality patient-centred care. Working within our multidisciplinary team serving approximately 12,800 patients, you will play a key role in medicines optimisation, prescribing quality and long-term condition management.
Main duties of the job
Provide proactive leadership on medicines and prescribing systems for the practice team, patients and carers.
Manage patients living with long-term conditions and complex medication needs.
Deliver patient-facing consultations to improve outcomes and reduce workload for other clinicians.
Undertake high-quality medication reviews and develop individualised treatment plans, particularly for elderly and high-risk patients.
Improve patient understanding, confidence and compliance with medicines.
Support medicines reconciliation and prescribing safety following hospital admissions and attendance.
Drive improvements in prescribing quality through clinical audit, education and adherence to NICE guidance and clinical standards.
Work closely with community pharmacists and wider healthcare partners to improve patient experience.
Participate in service redesign, clinical supervision and ongoing professional development.
Provide training, mentoring and medicines-management advice to colleagues.
About us
We are a well-established, forward-thinking practice committed to delivering high-quality, patient-first healthcare within a supportive and collaborative working environment. Based in modern, purpose-built facilities, we are proud of our passionate and experienced Partnership and management team and our active involvement in Rutland Health PCN.
We value our people and place a strong emphasis on both professional development and personal wellbeing. Our experienced and cohesive team works together with a shared commitment to making a difference, recognising that everyone has their part to play in delivering excellent patient care.
We offer the benefits of NHS employment, including auto-enrolment into the NHS Pension Scheme, alongside a positive working environment where staff are valued, supported and encouraged to thrive.
Job description Job responsibilities
The Clinical Pharmacist in a general practice organisation has the following key responsibilities in relation to delivering health services.
There may be, on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks; this will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels.
Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using their expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas
Be a prescriber, or completing training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the general practice team
Be responsible for the care management of patients with chronic diseases and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially the elderly, people in care homes, those with multiple co-morbidities (in particular frailty, COPD and asthma) and people with learning disabilities or autism (through STOMP Stop Over Medication Programme)
Provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients at the organisation and to help in tackling inequalities
Provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation (including ensuring prescribers in the practice conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services
Through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care
Have a leadership role in supporting further integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage general practice workload
Develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across the wider health and social care system
Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols, clinical research with medicines, liaison with specialist pharmacists (including mental health and reduction of inappropriate antipsychotic use in people with learning difficulties), liaison with community pharmacists, and anticoagulation
Be part of a professional clinical network and have access to appropriate clinical supervision. Appropriate clinical supervision means:
Each clinical pharmacist must receive a minimum of one supervision session per month by a senior clinical pharmacist
The senior clinical pharmacist must receive a minimum of one supervision session every three months by a GP clinical supervisor
Each clinical pharmacist will have access to an assigned GP clinical supervisor for support and development
A ratio of one senior clinical pharmacist to no more than five junior clinical pharmacists, with appropriate peer support and supervision in place
To act as the point of contact for all medicine related matters, establishing positive working relationships
To consult patients within defined levels of competence and independently prescribe acute and repeat medication
To receive referrals and directed patients from triage services and other clinicians
To receive and resolve medicines queries from patients and other staff
To provide medication review services for patients in the practice and during domiciliary visits to the local nursing home
To manage a caseload of complex patients
To manage a therapeutic drug monitoring system and the recall of patients taking high risk drugs, i.e., anticoagulants, anticonvulsants and DMARDs, etc.
To deliver long term condition clinics and home visits, particularly for patients with complicated medication regimes, and prescribe accordingly
To provide pharmaceutical consultations to patients with long term conditions as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team
To review medications for newly registered patients
To improve patient and carer understanding of confidence in and compliance with their medication
To maintain accurate clinical records in conjunction with extant legislation
To encourage cost-effective prescribing throughout the organisation
To implement and embed a robust repeat prescribing system
To provide advice and answer medication related queries from patients and staff
To organise and oversee the organisations medicines optimisation systems, including the repeat prescribing and medication review systems
Additional responsibilities
To improve the quality and effectiveness of prescribing through clinical audit and education, to improve performance against NICE standards and clinical and prescribing guidance.
To develop yourself and the role through participation in clinical supervision, training and service redesign activities
To ensure appropriate supervision of safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs. To apply infection-control measures within the practice according to local and national guidelines
To provide subject matter expertise on medication monitoring, implementing and embedding a system
To support clinicians with the management of patients suffering from drug and alcohol dependencies
To actively signpost patients to the correct healthcare professional
To manage a caseload of complex patients and potential care institutions and to provide advice for the GP management of more complex patients or areas such as addictive behaviours, severe mental illness or end of life care
To review the latest guidance, ensuring the organisation conforms to NICE, CQC etc.
To provide targeted support and proactive reviews for vulnerable, complex patients and those at risk of admission and re-admission to secondary care
To handle prescription queries and requests directly
To provide proactive leadership on medicines and prescribing systems to the organisation, patients and their carers
To support in the delivery of enhanced services and other service requirements on behalf of the organisation
To participate in the management of patient complaints when requested to do so, and participate in the identification of any necessary learning brought about through clinical incidents and near-miss events
To undertake all mandatory training and induction programmes
To contribute to and embrace the spectrum of clinical governance
To attend a formal appraisal with your manager at least every 12 months. Once a performance/training objective has been set, progress will be reviewed on a regular basis so that new objectives can be agreed
To contribute to public health campaigns (e.g., COVID-19 or flu clinics) through advice or direct care
To maintain a clean, tidy, effective working area at all times.
Person Specification
Qualifications Essential
Master of Pharmacy Degree GPhC registration
Desirable
Independent Prescriber qualification CPPE qualification Primary care experience
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).
Employer details Employer name Uppingham Surgery
Address North Gate
Uppingham
Oakham
Rutland
LE15 9EG
United Kingdom
Employer's website https://www.uppinghamsurgery.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)