Clinical Pharmacist
Posted 7 days 18 hours ago by NHS
This is an excitingopportunity to join our established and award-winning Cheltenham Central PCNPharmacy team and help deliver an ambitious, patient-focused service thatsupports NHS priorities and public health. You'll lead on medicinesoptimisation through structured medication reviews, promote safe, effective andcost-conscious prescribing, and empower patients to manage their health,medicines and long-term conditions. This roleoffers the chance to shape the future of General Practice healthcare andadvance the pharmacy profession. You'll work collaboratively within asupportive team that shares knowledge, tackles complex queries together, andencourages professional growth, while also working independently andrecognising your limits.
We are lookingfor a GPhC registered pharmacist with strong clinical knowledge and a goodunderstanding of evidenced-based healthcare.It is advantageous, but not essential, to have completedthe CPPE Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway and be a qualified IndependentPrescriber.
You willexcel if you have:
- Strong organisation and prioritisation
- Flexibility and resilience
- A proactive, adaptable approach
In return, wecan offer you a flexible and supportive working environment which values bothyour personal wellbeing and professional development. If you're passionateabout helping people get the most from their medicines and want to contributeto a sustainable NHS, wed love to hear from you.
Main duties of the jobYour role willbe to support the ongoing work within Cheltenham Central PCN, to delivermedicines optimisation and offer high quality, safe and cost-effectivemedicines and patient centred care. You will work closely with individualpractice leads at your designated practice(s) and the pharmacy team to tailorthe delivery of network priorities and targets with a practice-based focus. Main duties include medication reviews andmanagement of long-term conditions, providing medicines information and adviceto patients and colleagues, audit and quality improvement work, leading of safeprescribing and ensuring the practices are CQC compliant. This list is notexhaustive: see full details in the attachment to this advert.
About usCheltenhamCentral PCN consists of 5 GP practices serving a population of over 50,000people.Our well-established pharmacy team of 7 Pharmacists and 3 PharmacyTechnicians benefit from experienced joint Lead Pharmacists, who will supportyou both professionally and personally to help embed you into the role.
We have aforward thinking and supportive PCN Leadership Team, who champion the benefits Pharmacistsand Pharmacy Technicians can bring to General Practice. With teaching practiceswithin the PCN, there is a positive learning environment with the opportunityto teach various members of the MDT. We have generous leave allowances andconsider flexible working, aiming to optimise work life balance whilstproviding a high quality and reliable service.
Our team aresupportive of one another, embrace our diversity, and constantly learn fromeach other. We benefit from a fresh and modern joint working space, allowingthe team to consult colleagues for help. We champion face to face clinics anddeveloping our clinical skills via access to clinic rooms, where available,whilst managing the day-to-day medicines management workflow (medicationrequests, clinical letters and queries and discharges).
If you enjoy asociable, friendly and collaborative team, as well as autonomous working,helping to develop other professionals and up-skill yourself, then this is theenvironment to grow your talents and strive to work to the top of yourprofessional capabilities and beyond.
Job responsibilitiesPlease refer to the full job description and personal specification attached to this advert.
Brief description (Job Summary and Purpose):
The post holder will work within the Cheltenham Central PCN,which includes 5 practices across Cheltenham, ensuring that medicines managementprocesses within these practices are optimised to achieve highly effective,safe and patient-centred prescribing. You will be allocated practices (up totwo practices depending on hours worked) to work between within your working hours.
Each practice has a buddy system inplace, to allow for cross cover and support. This helps embed the individuals in the surgery and improve communications and consistency in cover by sharing knowledge and experience of practice working.
We aim for each practice to have aprimary or lead Pharmacist who will lead on pharmacy related workflow at the individualpractice and be their point of contact with the PCN pharmacy team. This personwill liaise with the other pharmacists in the PCN and practice-based teams, andwork with the PCN team Lead Pharmacists as required to share best practice andgain support and advice, and top down information from county wide meetings toshare with the practice.
The post holder will be a pharmacist,who acts within their professional boundaries, supporting and working alongsidea team of Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians. In this role they will besupported by the Lead Clinical Pharmacists who will develop, manage and mentorthem
The post holder will work as part of amulti-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. The post holder will takeresponsibility for areas of chronic disease management within the practice andundertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients withcomplex polypharmacy.
The post holder will provide primarysupport to general practice staff dealing with prescription and medicationqueries. They will help support the repeat prescription process, deal withacute prescription requests, and carry out medicines reconciliation on transferof care. They will help implement systems for safer prescribing, providingexpertise in clinical medicines advice while addressing both public health andsocial care needs of patient in the GP practice (s).
The post holder will provide clinicalleadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement and help in themanagement of some aspects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) and localenhanced services.
The post holder will ensure that thepractice integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skillmix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and helpmanage workload. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care andoperational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliverexcellent service within general practice.
The post holder will ideally already bean Independent Prescriber and have undertaken the CPPE Primary CareEducation Pathway or have completed the Exemption and equivalenceprocesses for the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway. However, if theydo not hold these qualifications then training will be provided andsupported.
Person Specification Experience- Experience of working in GP practice
- An appreciation of the nature of general practice & PCNs
- Sound therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidencebased healthcare
- Experience of patient facing working
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Good time keeping
- Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
- Work effectively independently and as a team member
- Self-motivation & Initiative
- Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
- Registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council.
- Primary Care Education Pathway, Statement of Progression.
- Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
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.
£36,000 to £51,000 a year Pay depending on experience