Senior Clinical Pharmacist - Virtual Wards - Chester

Job overview

The Senior Clinical Pharmacist plays a crucial role within our virtual wards, with a clinical focus on frailty, respiratory and general medicine, working collaboratively with acute providers across Cheshire and Merseyside ICB. This is an exciting opportunity to work in a dynamic and evolving environment, providing pharmaceutical expertise to support the delivery of safe and effective patient care.

Each role works alongside the pharmacy and clinical teams at the acute trust which deliver the virtual ward service they are allocated to. We are now looking for an enthusiastic pharmacist to provide virtual ward services for the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS.

Join our team and make a difference in the lives of patients across Cheshire and Merseyside!

Main duties of the job

The main duties of the role include:

• Providing specialist clinical pharmacy services to the virtual wards, ensuring the safe and appropriate use of medicines.
• Collaborating with the multidisciplinary team to optimise medicines management, including medicines reconciliation, prescribing, and monitoring.
• Conducting comprehensive medication reviews and providing evidence-based recommendations to improve patient outcomes.
• Supporting the development and implementation of clinical guidelines, protocols and policies related to pharmacy and medicines management for virtual wards.
• Providing education and training to healthcare professionals, patients and carers on medicines-related topics.
• Contributing to audit, research, and service improvement projects to enhance pharmaceutical care for patients on virtual wards.

Working for our organisation

Cheshire and Merseyside ICB covers a population of 2.7million people with services provided by 17 NHS trusts, 349 GP practices, 9 local authorities and 590 pharmacies.

Virtual wards for respiratory, frailty and general medicine are operational across the region. The Countess of Chester Hospital at Home/virtual ward service covers the Chester and Cheshire West area.

The Medicines Management team at C&M ICB and pharmacy team at Warrington and Halton Hospital are committed to the professional development of their staff. Full induction and training will be provided for staff working in this new area of practice, and we will support staff who wish to undertake additional training linked to their role.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Role summary - please note that a full JD/PS is attached to this vacancy

The post holder will be an integral member of the C&M virtual wards pharmacy team. The main duties are to provide specialist clinical pharmacy services to patients admitted to the virtual wards across the ICB footprint and be part of the Place virtual ward clinical teams:

Lead and deliver on a specialist clinical pharmacy service to virtual ward patients.

Provide and develop a specialist clinical pharmacy service to improve the quality of patient care and to promote evidence-based, cost-effective prescribing and use of medicines. Identify risks related to medicines and manage these to ensure patient safety and improve patient experience.

Manage other members of the virtual wards pharmacy team as appropriate.

Lead on projects and audits to monitor the delivery of the pharmacy service as the virtual wards evolve.

Provide training and education to clinical and healthcare staff, including members of the virtual ward MDT.

Play a key role liaising with a range of colleagues in the virtual ward teams, notably prescribers, nurses, other clinical roles, finance, human resources, estates, facilities, transport and health and safety.

Participate in the virtual ward MDT ward rounds.

The post is allocated a base but may be expected to travel to patients homes across a defined geographical area within C&M.

The post holder will be required to work with different organisations across C&M ICS.

The post holder will be expected to work flexibly in line with hours of operation of virtual ward sites.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in pharmacy or equivalent
• Registered as a pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).
• Specialist knowledge acquired through a post graduate diploma course in Clinical Pharmacy or similar or alternatively acquired through relevant and equivalent experience

• Registered independent prescriber with the GPhC.

Physical Effort

• Able to lift / carry pharmaceutical goods.

Experience

• Extensive relevant post-registration experience
• Broad specialist clinical pharmacy knowledge.
• Developing and undertaking clinical and non-clinical audits.
• Familiarity with the concepts of evidence-based medicines.
• Involved in identifying and assessing risk to improve patient safety.
• Ability to demonstrate evidence of working in multi-disciplinary teams.
• Specialist knowledge and experience on relevant areas of community health services.
• Understanding of issues related to independent prescribing.
• Experience of providing clinical pharmacy services.
• Expertise of addressing and resolving legal issues related to medicines.
• Experience of implementing NICE, NSF recommendations related to medicines.
• Addressing, implementing and monitoring compliance with NHS Improvement Patient Safety Alerts related to medicines.
• Developing and delivering medicines management training to other healthcare professionals

• Managing or advising on drug budgets and drugs costs and how to monitor these.
• Experience of provision of medicines information and associated systems.
• Experience of working with older people with complex health needs as a clinical pharmacist.
• Management/supervision of pharmacy staff.

Skills, Knowledge and Competencies

• Excellent organisational skills.
• Ability to develop effective working relationships at all levels.
• Effective influencing and negotiation skills and ability to persuade others.
• Ability to communicate effectively with a range of healthcare staff including prescribers, social care staff and patients.
• Ability to work independently and within a team.
• Good time management skills, with ability to prioritise and manage own workload.
• Knowledge of other professional registering bodies e.g., NMC, GMC.
• Able to apply sound professional judgement to legal and ethical issues.
• Able to work and deliver within identified timelines.
• Self-motivated and able to initiate change.
• Good written communication skills.
• Methodological approach and attention to detail in terms of medicines.

• Ability to generate prescribing data using epact.net and to interpret data produced.

Specific role requirements

• Reliable, enthusiastic and self-motivated.
• Flexible approach.
• Able to concentrate on dispensing / checking/ clinical screening for extended periods.
• Able to cope with interruptions when busy.
• Able to work to deadlines i.e., transport, patients requiring medication.

Physical skills

• Computer literate including use of word-processing, excel spread-sheets, power-point.
• Ability to write report and other documents.

• Knowledge of primary care clinical Systems (EMIS/SystmOne)
• Knowledge of secondary care clinical systems.

Mental Effort

• Ability to assimilate, analyse and interpret complex data.
• Critical appraisal skills.
• Ability to challenge.
• Ability to work under pressure and be able to make important decisions.
• Ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Skills, Knowledge and Competencies

• Good presentation skills.
• Good verbal communication skills.

Specific role requirements

• Professional appearance and manner.

Emotional Effort

• Exposure to upsetting situations, high level of resilience to deal with distressing and/or challenging situations
• Distressed patients with complex diseases. May work with distressed patients, relatives due to drug regime, drug misadventures.

You can find more information on the Government website. Please review your eligibility and the eligibility of the role before submitting your application.