Clinical Pharmacist
Job Summary: To improve patients health outcomes and the efficiency of the Primary Care team by providing direct, accessible and timely Clinical Medicines expertise, by working as part of a multidisciplinary practice team. To proactively transfer workload relating to medicines optimisation issues from other clinical staff to improve patient care, safety, thus freeing up other clinical staff to spend more time on other clinical care: To promote safe, evidence based, cost effective prescribing in line with CCG requirements To provide expert pharmaceutical advice to practice staff and patients To provide prescribing support in areas such as o Hospital discharge letters o Face to Face medication reviews and follow up o Implementation of prescribing changes o Review of repeat prescribing o Audit This role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires good motivation and passion to deliver an excellent service within a General Practice environment.
1. Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility Patient facing long-term condition and medication review clinics See patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. diabetes, hypertension, heart failure), or where patients are prescribed large numbers of medicines or combinations with identifiable risks.Review the ongoing medicine plan for these patients, ensuring they get the best use of their medicines and make appropriate recommendations to clinicians for medicine improvement Medicines support in person or by telephone Provide patient facing clinics or telephone support for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
Medicine information to practice staff and patients Respond to medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients/carers with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
Unplanned hospital admissions Provide targeted support and proactive review for vulnerable, complex patients and those at risk of admission and re-admission to secondary care Management of medicines at discharge from hospital To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge.
Signposting Ensure that patients are referred in a timely manner to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care (e.g. pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.) Repeat prescribing Oversee repeat prescribing, repeat dispensing, electronic prescribing and medication review systems.
Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required. Risk stratification Identification of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared practice computer searches. This might include risks that are patient related, medicine related, or both.
Service development Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components (e.g. advice on treatment pathways and patient information leaflets). Develop specialist area(s) of interest. Information management Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making.
Medicines quality improvement Undertake simple audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team. Medicines safety Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
Implementation of local/national guidelines and formulary recommendations Agree and review Prescribing Formularies and Protocols and monitor compliance levels. Cost Effectiveness Support the delivery of QOF, incentive schemes, QIPP and other quality or cost effectiveness initiatives Education and Training Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
Care Quality Commission Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved. Please see the full job description attached to this advert for further details.