Job Description

The post holder will work directly with multi-disciplinary teams to improve clinical effectiveness and person-centred outcomes. The role will be based within the GP member practices providing support to the GPs and other healthcare professionals within the teams to improve the health of patients through the rational and safe use of medicines. The post holder will contribute to the efficient working of the PCN team by leading on key areas in relation to medicines optimisation. The role will include face to face and remote patient contact, as well as liaison with colleagues in community pharmacy, care homes and secondary care.

Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility

Note: Duties and Areas of Responsibility will vary between the practices according to needs. They may include the following examples:

Patient facing Long Term Condition Clinics

See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required.

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).

Run own long-term condition clinics where responsible for prescribing as an independent prescriber.

Patient facing Clinical Medication

Review

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for/implement changes in prescribing and monitoring.

Patient facing care home medication reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients/carers and produce recommendations /implement changes in prescribing and monitoring.

Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

Patient facing domiciliary clinical

medication review

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for /implement changes in prescribing and monitoring.

Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.

Patient facing medicines support

Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines

Management of common/minor/self -limiting

ailments

Managing caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.

Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate

Telephone medicines support

Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.

Medicine information to practice staff

and patients

Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice 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

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 highrisk patient groups.

Management of medicines at discharge

from hospital

To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients, dispensers 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 highrisk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).

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.

Repeat prescribing/dispensing

Support 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.

Support the development of repeat dispensing services where appropriate.

Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place

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).

Information management

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

Medicines quality improvement

Undertake clinical audits of prescribing to identify areas for improvement independently or in collaboration with colleagues. Present results & provide leadership on suggested change.

Contribute to local & national research initiatives

Medicines safety

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

Implementation of local and national

guidelines and formulary

recommendations

Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economys 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).

Assist practices in maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer system.

Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.

Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.

Education and Training

Provide education and training to primary healthcare team & visiting students 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.

Public health

To support public health campaigns.

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

Contract Work

Contribute toall GMS, PCN Network DES, QOF, DSQS contract work

Overview of your organisation

Taunton Central Primary Care Network is a relatively new organisation but our five member practices have a strong history of collaborative working to develop the best patient-centred care and services. The PCN has approximately 66,500 patients registered with four practices in Taunton and one practice in the neighbouring village of Bishops Lydeard. We pride ourselves on our ability and willingness to adopt innovative ways of working that improve patient care and make our PCN a rewarding place to work.

Pay: Dependent on Experience. Based on Band 7 AfC

Qualifications:

Essential:

- Masters Degree in Pharmacy

- Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council Membership of Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Desirable:

- Clinical Diploma in Independent Prescribing

- A member of, or working towards, the Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Experience:

Essential:

- Minimum of 2 years post-qualification experience

- An appreciation of the nature of GPs and General Practices

- An appreciation of the nature of Primary Care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing

- Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills

- Good IT skills

- Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information

Desirable:

- In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare

Location: St James Medical Centre, Taunton. With travel across all sites and practices within the Taunton Central Primary Care Network

Closing date: 09 June 2025

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: 23.60-24.82 per hour

Expected hours: 37.5 per week

Work Location: In person

Application deadline: 09/06/2025
Reference ID: A2706-25-0000