Specialist Clinical Pharmacist – Mental Health Services - Maghull
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We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us.We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
Job overview
It’s a great time to join the Medicines Management Team at Mersey Care. Our services have been restructured to support an enhanced model under a senior leadership team which is fully committed to delivering outstanding services and investing in the professional development of its workforce.
We are looking to recruit enthusiastic, proactive and self-motivated pharmacists to join our supportive team to help us to deliver our enhanced clinical pharmacy service model.
This is a fantastic opportunity for compassionate pharmacists with a special interest and passion for mental health. We welcome applications from pharmacists with experience from any sector who have interest and empathy for mental health pharmacy who wish to develop their clinical practice in a hospital setting.
Our roles provide an unparalleled opportunity to develop skills and experience across a diverse range of clinical services. We provide a well-structured support system, including robust individual and group supervision, personal development planning and regular access to professional development opportunities.
Ideal candidates will have excellent communication skills and an ability to use initiative and work flexibly as part of a team.
Planned Shortlisting -14 January 2025
Planned Interviews - 20 January 2025 (week commencing)
Main duties of the job
You will be a valued member of Medicines Management team and a core member of multi-disciplinary teams providing a clinical pharmacy service to our in-patient mental health services.
You will help to deliver and develop ward-based medicines management activities to promote the effective and efficient use of medicines, improving patient care and minimising waste. You will work as part of the Medicines Management team and be a core member of the inpatient multi-disciplinary team providing a clinical pharmacy service to in-patient areas.
Our roles include a requirement to provide dispensary cover on a rota basis. There is also a requirement to support the Out of Hours Medicines Advice service and weekend working in the dispensary on a 1/12 week basis (9:30 am-1:30pm).
There is a recruitment and retention premium attached to the above posts. Successful candidates will receive a £2,000 payment on joining the Trust and an additional £2,000 on completion of the first year of employment. In addition, there is a retention premia payment of £2500/annum.
Recruitment payments must be paid back in full if the employee leaves the Trust within two years of starting.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together.We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The deliver a comprehensive clinical pharmacy service to designated mental health wards, providing specialist information and advice to members of the multi-disciplinary team, to maximise patient pharmaceutical care.
To complete medicines reconciliation following admission or transfer of service users.
To record clinical interventions and prepare pharmaceutical care plans, in line with departmental procedures.
To work alongside the trust dispensary and ward technical teams to provide support and ensure the safe and timely supply of medicines across the trust.
To clinically check inpatient prescriptions, leave and discharge prescriptions to ensure the appropriate, safe, and legal supply of medicines, complying with national and local guidelines.
To provide specialist advice and information on the safe and effective use of medicines to service users and carers to maximise adherence with prescribed treatment
To ensure cost- effective and efficient use of resources across the primary/secondary care interface, ensuring compliance with formularies, guidelines, policies, and procedures.
To participate in clinical audit and practice research.
To report near misses and medication incidents and support review, learning and follow up of incidents.
To assist with the preparation and delivery of education and training sessions for staff, service users, patients, and carers
Refer to the job description and person specification for full details.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria- Master of Pharmacy degree, or equivalent qualification
- Postgraduate qualification in Clinical Pharmacy, willingness to work towards or equivalent experience
- Registration with General Pharmaceutical Council
- Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS)
Knowledge/Experience
Essential criteria- Demonstrable evidence of commitment to self development and CPD
- Experience of undertaking audit within pharmaceutical services
- Understanding of how medicines optimisation contributes to high quality patient care
- Understanding and positive regard for the needs and rights of people with mental health problems or learning disabilities, and their carers
- Experience of multidisciplinary team working
- Experience of working in a hospital pharmacy
- Experience of providing supervision
- Experience of providing education regarding medicines
- Experience of working in providing a pharmacy service within a mental health or learning disabilities setting
- Experience of working within an NHS organisation
- Experience of provision of Medicines Information services
- Knowledge of the evidence base relating to the prescribing of psychotropic medicines
- Knowledge of recent initiatives within pharmacy
- Experience of line management of staff
Values
Essential criteria- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Skills
Essential criteria- Excellent organisational skills
- Good IT skills
- Excellent communication skills: – written – verbal – listening
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Good time management
- Decision making skills
- Ability to travel between different sites
- Ability to work as a team player and to work independently
- Ability to work flexibly
- Pro-active and displays initiative
- Ability to adapt to changing environments, needs and demands
- Report writing skills
- Professional manner
- Critical appraisal skills
Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust’s guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.
Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email [email protected] to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.
We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.
The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email [email protected]) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form.The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.