Job Description

Clinical Pharmacist

The closing date is 25 July 2025

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen at Pontefract & Knottingley Primary Care Network (PCN) for a Pharmacist to join our friendly and dynamic team.

Pontefract and Knottingley PCN is made up of four GP Practices, Ash Grove Medical Centre, Friarwood Medical Centre, Northgate Medical Centre and Stuart Road Medical Centre serving a population of approximately 49,000 registered patients. The practices are located across Pontefract and Knottingley district.

The PCN covers four GP practices in the district serving a patient population of around 49,000 and we are looking to recruit enthusiastic, forward thinking GP Assistants to work as part of a team covering the GP practices and also work alongside Care Co-ordinators in our Care Homes. The role also includes collaboratively working across the network area with our community partners to look after the health and wellbeing of our local population.

You will be joining our growing Pharmacy Team, and be a part of our larger ARRS team which is made up of a variety of different staff members who all link in with each other to support the Practice's and each other.

Further ongoing support will be provided through both local and countrywide governance and peer support groups. Additional professional development in line with the individuals needs will be available with shadowing, mentoring, e-learning, and relevant courses/conferences.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will work within their clinical competencies as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in clinical medicines management, provide face to face structured medication reviews, manage long term conditions, management of medicines on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing, manage repeat prescription authorisations and reauthorisation, acute prescription request, while addressing both the public health and social care needs of patients in the GP practice(s) that make up the PCN. The post holder will perform face to face medication review of patients with polypharmacy especially for older people, people in residential care homes and those with multiple comorbidities. The post holder will provide leadership on quality improvement and clinical audit and well as managing some aspects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework. This role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver an excellent service within general practice. The post holder will be supported to develop their role to become a non-medical prescriber, if that qualification is not already held.

About us

Conexus Healthcare Limited is the Confederation for general practice in Wakefield, we have four areas of work.

1. Delivery of high-quality public facing Health and Wellbeing services across the Wakefield District: We develop, manage, and deliver health and care services that support the population of the whole Wakefield district

2. Delivery of Training, Development and Consultancy support across the United Kingdom: We design and deliver a range of training courses, development activity and provide advice and guidance that supports general practices and other primary care organisations.

3. Supporting Our Practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs): We support general practices and PCNs across the Wakefield district to be more resilient, sustainable and deliver better patient care and care for the health needs of their populations.

4. Providing a voice and influence for General Practice in the Health and Care System: We provide a forum to develop a unified voice for General Practice and support general practices to cooperate and work collaboratively with the wider health and care sector partners in the district.

Built within primary care, for primary care, Conexus Healthcare Limited works with local GPs and their practices to champion investment in and deliver effective primary care at scale. By connecting in this way, we are stronger, more resilient and can care effectively for over 370,000 local people together.

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. Patient facing Long-term condition Clinics

See (where appropriate) patients with single co-morbidity or multiple morbidity where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. Respiratory, Cardiovascular and Diabetes) and also where deprescribing is essential. Review the on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs, and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation). It is crucial to ascertain shared decision making with the patient. Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement/ patient safety.

2. Patient facing Structured Medication reviews

Review / Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring. It will be expected that BP, weight, and any other measure are conducted and recorded onto the clinical system.

3. Patient facing Care Home Structured Medication Reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacist, nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

4. Patient facing Domiciliary Clinical Structured Medication Reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacists, nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.

5. Risk stratification

Identification of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared practice computer searches. Identifying possible ADR, Frail pts, at risk patients, high risk drugs etc. This might include risks that are patient related, medicine related, or both.

6. Unplanned hospital admissions

Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews. Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.

7. Medicines support

Provide patients with support either face to face or over the phone for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.

8. Management of medicines at discharge from hospital

To conduct a medicines reconciliation structured medication review following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into Care Homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge. Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in Care Homes). This will help reduce ADR.

9. Medicine information to practice staff and patients

Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other network staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.

10. Signposting

Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.

11. Repeat prescribing

Produce and implement a repeat prescribing/dispensing policy within the practice. Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review. Flagging up any that require monitoring i.e DMARDs, Shared care guidance drugs. Ensuring appropriate monitoring is in place prior to reauthorising.

12. Information management

Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making.

13. Medicines quality improvement

Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the relevant practice team.

14. Medicines safety

Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.

15. Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations

Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy's RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs). Auditing practices' compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.

16. Education and Training

Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.

17. Care Quality Commission

Work with the general practice teams to ensure the practices are compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.

18. Public health

To support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.

19. Collaborative working arrangements

Participates in the PCN MDT.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Masters Degree in Pharmacy or equivalent Current GPhC registration

Experience

Essential

Experience of working at a specialist level with CCG, community or hospital pharmacy services and/or at the interface between primary care and other healthcare providers Demonstrate ability to influence and persuade partners and stakeholders of the respective merits of different options, innovations, new opportunities and challenges Independent Prescribing Qualification (Desirable)

Knowledge and Understanding

Essential

Relevant advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of general practice and evidence based medicine Knowledge of the principles of Medicines Optimisation Knowledge of polypharmacy and deprescribing Awareness and understanding of risk stratification approaches to identify chronic disease and long-term conditions patients Awareness of systems to support management of patients in a primary care setting, delivering pharmaceutical input and support in the context of pathways of care and the business of the organisation(s) Awareness of GP budget-management and funding systems to enable GP clinical pharmacist services to assist delivery of PCN and NHS priorities and requirements for financial balance and quality Evidence of working across the interfaces between general practice providers and social care Evidence of personal leadership to improve the quality of chair Demonstrated ability to prioritise own workload and that of others

Attributes

Essential

Ability to negotiate on difficult and complex clinical and organisaional issues Excellent interpersonal and communications skills Ability to perform patient-centered structured medication reviews to a proficient level using techniques such as motivational interviewing etc Sound problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands Ability to analyse complex facts and situations and develop a range of options Strategic thinking ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise Ability to establish systems and ensure delivery of data gathering and reporting for highly detailed outcome and output measures relevant to the GP Clinical Pharmacy pilot Ability to work on own initiative and organise workload, allocating work as necessary Ability to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues Self-motivated Adaptability, flexibility and ability to cope with uncertainty and change Demonstrate ability to work in a busy environment; ability to deal with both urgent and important tasks and to prioritise effectively whilst also supporting others Able to travel independently across practices if needed

Skills and Competencies

Essential

Effective consultation skills within a clinical setting to support people be activated in their own care including use of motivational interviewing techniques, patient education and supported self-care Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain good working relations across multidisciplinary teams Must understand the aims of current healthcare policy, including the new GP contract and the NHS Long Term Plan Awareness of primary care systems for prescribing and funding to facilitate pathways across health systems Able to interpret complex clinical information and data on medicines to deliver face to face clinical care including managing a caseload Strong leadership skills Excellent ability to organise oneself and others Demonstrate accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision; accepts accountability for and learns from their acts and omissions Skills in preparing formal documentation for staff, public and patients Able to demonstrate tact, empathy and diplomacy in order to communicate confidential and sensitive information to patients and healthcare professionals Able to demonstrate and engage GPs in the effective and appropriate use of medicines and of medicines optimistation services Ability to provide and receive complex, sensitive and contentious information, negotiate with senior stakeholders on difficult and controversial issues, and present complex and sensitive information to groups Ability to plan and organise a broad range of activities formulating and adjusting plans to reflect changing circumstances Ability to work with stakeholders to develop performance improvement plans and to develop plans for innovation and service development/new ways of working Ability to work under pressure and to tight, and often changing and conflicting deadlines
Job Types: Full-time, Part-time

Pay: 45,141.00-49,977.00 per year

Work Location: In person

Reference ID: A0430-25-0034