About this role
Job summary
An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and motivated Pharmacy Technician to join the Medicines Governance & Safety Team within the Pharmacy Department.
The successful post holder will support the development and delivery of medicines safety initiatives within pharmacy and across the Trust, helping to ensure safe, effective, and high-quality use of medicines for patients.
You will work closely with pharmacists, nursing staff, ward teams, governance leads, and the Medication Safety Officer to investigate incidents, support audits, develop standard operating procedures (SOPs), and contribute to quality improvement projects.
This role is ideal for an experienced pharmacy technician with a strong interest in governance, patient safety, medicines optimisation, and service improvement.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will:
Support the delivery of safe, effective and high-quality services by supporting and co-ordinating governance and risk management activities within the department Support the delivery of safe, effective and high-quality services by supporting and co-ordinating governance and risk management activities within the department Assist in the investigation and reporting of medication incidents and near misses Analyse trends from incident reporting systems and identify areas for improvement Participate in medicines safety audits and quality improvement projects Monitor compliance with medicines management policies and national guidance Support the implementation of medicines related alert actions Assist in the development and review of SOPs and medicines policies Promote safe and secure handling of medicines across clinical areas Deliver medicines safety training and education to pharmacy and ward staff Work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams to improve patient outcomes Support controlled drug governance activities where required Maintain accurate governance documentation and audit records Produce routine and ad hoc reports for reporting within pharmacy, to the Trust and for external organisations such as CQC.
About us
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is a large acute and specialised hospital trust that provides a range of local acute services to the residents of Worcestershire and more specialised services to a larger population in Herefordshire and beyond.
The Trust operates hospital-based services from three sites in Kidderminster, Redditch and Worcester
Our workforce is more than 7,000 strong, and our caring staff are recognised as providing good and outstanding patient-centred care. You could be one of them.
We are committed to recruiting the best people to work with us. Our values, which we ask all staff to demonstrate, underpin our everyday work and remain firmly at the heart of all we do.
Being open and honest
Ensuring people feel cared for
Showing respect to everyone
We are committed to developing a culture of continuous improvement by embedding the principles of our Improvement System.
We are proud to have achieved Timewise accreditation - this means we are committed to embedding flexible working within our organisation as a flex positive employer.
DBS Checks and Costs
Any applicants who are offered posts requiring a DBS check as part of their employment check will have the cost of this check (at the current rate) deducted from their salary. Please see link in Supporting Information section for more details on DBS checks and costs.
Job description Job responsibilities
Job Purpose:
To support the delivery of safe, effective, and high-quality pharmacy services by supporting and coordinating governance and risk management activities within the department. The post holder will work closely with the Principal Pharmacist for Governance and Medicines Safety Officer (MSO), clinical teams, and trust-wide governance structures to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and promote a culture of continuous improvement. A key focus of the role is to proactively identify, assess, and manage risks related to medicines use, pharmacy operations, and regulatory compliance. This includes coordinating audits, supporting incident investigations, maintaining risk registers, facilitating policy development, and contributing to staff training and education on governance and risk mitigation strategies.
Key Duties:
Governance
- Support the Principal Pharmacist for Governance and Medicines Safety Officer with identifying and managing risks and ensuing that the risk register is maintained and is presented on a monthly basis to divisional quality board and pharmacy quality team.
- Work with pharmacy department risk owners and assessors to develop appropriate actions to mitigate risk and ensure these are completed in a timely manner.
- Actively contribute to departmental audits, developing action plans and ensuring actions are completed in a timely manner.
- Ensure all statutory audits and reviews for pharmacy are completed and resulting outcomes actioned.
- Support with Health and Safety within the department including fire, first aid, working with equipment and Control of Substances Hazardous to Health.
- Support with ensuring all mandatory reporting on Health and Safety using approved audit tools for the Pharmacy is completed timely and reported to the pharmacy quality teams and to the Trust.
- Compile reports on all aspects of pharmacy governance and medicines management.
- Co-ordinate the production and review of pharmacy SOPs and policies and write any relating to risk management and governance; that may impact in the wider Trust. Maintain the departmental SOP register.
- Support with pharmacy department governance SOPs
- To advise and act upon any actions on temperature control monitoring systems across the department and wards, liaising with the pharmacy informatics team and the pharmacy staff and the nursing staff.
- Support with the investigating and responding to patient complaints.
- Support the Controlled Drugs Accountable Officer to collect and enter data for the Controlled Drugs Local Intelligence Network and CD quarterly reports
Medicines Safety
- Supports and deputises for the Principal Pharmacist for Governance and Medicines Safety Officer or Deputy Medicines Safety Officer for the Trust, in managing reported incidents, follow them up and present data on KPIs and trending patterns. Includes assessments for duty of candour.
- Produce routine and ad hoc reports for reporting to pharmacy, divisional teams, Trust wide or ready for external visits such as CQC or MHRA, ensuring the quality of data is validated.
- Promotes all staff to improve the reporting and learning from medication related incidents and errors both inside and outside of the Trust.
- Recommends actions to be taken for improvements following on from incidents including the training and education to be delivered to multi- disciplinary groups for the purpose of patient safety and best practice.
- Supports the implementation of changes in practice and processes regarding the safe use of medicines based on national benchmarking and learning.
- Communicates and advises on up-to-date information from external bodies such as MHRA and NHSE on best practices on safe usage of medicines, ensuring information is documented.
- Carry out medicines related audits as required and support with developing action plans.
- To support in the management of drug recalls and alerts, ensuring all actions are complete and documented.
- Work closely with all healthcare professionals including medical and nursing staff groups and pharmacy staff to ensure the highest standards possible are achieved for medication safety across the organisation.
General Duties
- Support the Technical Team Leaders in managing efficient operation by supporting staff rotas.
- Undertake accuracy checking and final release of dispensed items.
- Deliver a ward-based pharmacy service.
- Receive, interpret, validate, dispense and issue prescriptions.
- Participation in rotas for weekends, late weekdays and bank, statutory holidays and on-call if required.
- To work at all times to the Trust values, policies and procedures and the GPhC code of conduct.
- Work flexibly across the department to ensure service needs are met.
Human Resources, Training and Development
- Responsible for the recruitment, induction and development of accountable staff and ensuring that appraisals are conducted according to required timescales including monthly 1 to 1s.
- Ensures that all staff within area of responsibility are adequately trained for the roles they perform and that records are maintained of such training.
- To address any concerns regarding the performance of staff within the area of responsibility, working within the Trust policy for dealing with such concerns.
- Assist in the supervision and participate in the delivery of the training programme for foundation year trainee pharmacists, pre-registration trainee pharmacy technicians and any other department trainees.
Education, Training and CPD
- Undertake Continuing Professional Development as required by the General Pharmaceutical Council.
- Identify own training needs and discuss these with their line manager.
Other Duties
The information supplied above is intended to summarise the key responsibilities and duties of the role. The post holder may be required from time to time to carry out other reasonable requests and duties as required, consistent with the responsibilities of their Banding and development as agreed between employee and manager.
Person Specification
Experience Essential
Experience of providing operational pharmacy services in an acute hospital trust setting. Significant recent experience of successfully supervising the technical services for a section of a large pharmacy department or a smaller team. Experience of organising and managing in a busy and potentially stressful environment. Proven experience of successfully supervising staff (including dealing with simple HR issues such as sickness, personal development reviews), implementing service improvements or change. Experience of working with healthcare IT systems and automation. E.g. EDS, DMS, automated ward medicine storage Experience in writing papers, reports, departmental SOPs and undertaking audits. Experience in identifying and managing risk.
Desirable
Recent experience of delivering a pharmacy technical service to wards. Experience in providing training to pre-registration pharmacists and technicians, qualified pharmacists and technicians. Experience at representing pharmacy or a pharmacy team at Trust meetings/forums. Experience in conducting audit.
Qualifications Essential
NVQ Level 3 and BTEC in pharmaceutical science or equivalent. Registered with the GPhC. Current in-date accreditation as a Checking Technician. Meeting GPhC requirements for CPD.
Desirable
Medicines Management accredited/qualification. Has undertaken a mentoring/coaching course. Has undertaken leadership training. Has undertaken other relevant training related to clinical governance and/or medicines safety.
Knowledge and Skills Essential
Skilled at using Microsoft Office to produce documents e.g. SOPs (MS Word), compile reports and plan work schedules (MS Excel, Access, Lists), and prepare and deliver training presentations (MS Powerpoint). Skilled at using on-line information sources. Excellent time management skills. Excellent communication and organisational skills.
Desirable
Knowledge and training in quality improvement. Considerable knowledge of hospital pharmacy and other NHS departments.
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 Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
Address Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
Alexandra Hospital
Woodrow Drive
REDDITCH
Worcestershire
B98 7UB
United Kingdom
Employer's website https://www.worcsacute.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)