Job Description

Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice is part of an exciting programme of transformation to develop a new model of care which addresses our ambition to deliver person-centred, coordinated care across Primary Care. The Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice model is supported by the direction of national policy including the Five Year Forward View and GP Forward View where there is a need to better utilise the role of pharmacy within primary care to pro-actively help patients stay safe and well, and out of hospital, as well as helping to reduce the demands on general practice.

Pharmacy technicians play an important role, complementing clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists and other members of the PCN multi- disciplinary team. Pharmacy technicians are different to clinical pharmacists as they are not able to prescribe or make clinical decisions, instead working under supervision to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines.

Pharmacy technicians' core role responsibilities will cover clinical, and technical and administrative categories.

The purpose of the role is to lead improvements to maximise safe, cost effective best practice in prescribing to improve the quality of patient care. The post holder will help patients to get the best from their medicines by switching medications to agreed and approved protocols, improving repeat prescribing processes in General Practice, including promotion of repeat dispensing and online ordering, minimising clinical risk and aiming to reduce wasted medicines.

In addition, the post holder will be responsible for encouraging the development of better understanding of the principles of medicines optimisation throughout the practice teams and promoting good practice in line with therapeutic developments. This will involve assisting the PCN in achieving national requirements, NICE implementation and utilisation of medicines optimisation initiatives.

This role will work under the supervision of the Clinical Pharmacist to ensure the safe, accurate and timely supply of prescribed medication to patients.

Primary key responsibilities

a. Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use through shared decision-making conversations with patients

b. Conduct medicine optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), support medication reviews and medicines reconciliation. When required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively

c. Support, as determined by the PCN, medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronise medicines for patient transfers between care settings and linking with local community pharmacists

d. Provide specialist expertise, when competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients including lifestyle advice, service information and help in tackling local health inequalities

e. Maintain a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaise with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients

f. Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing

g. Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive schemes and patient safety audits;

h. Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g. use of antibiotics), supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services;

i. Attend a formal appraisal with your manager at least every 12 months. Once a performance/training objective has been set, progress will be reviewed on a regular basis so that new objectives can be agreed

j. Contribute to public health campaigns (e.g., COVID-19 or flu clinics) through advice or direct care

Technical and administrative responsibilities

The technical and administrative responsibilities of the PCN Pharmacy Technician:

a. Work with the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation including implementing efficient ordering and return processes and reducing wastage

b. Supervise practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests so as to allow GPs and Clinical Pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests

c. Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across PCNs, supporting practices with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing electronic prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines

d. Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)

e. Develop relationships with other Pharmacy Technicians, Pharmacists and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support the integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and mental health

f. Support the delivery of local and national initiatives such as QOF, Medicines Optimisation and other quality or cost effectiveness initiatives

g. Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner

h. Duties may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.

i.There may be, on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks. This will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels.

Job Types: Part-time, Permanent

Pay: 18.29-20.75 per hour

Expected hours: 21 per week

Benefits:

Company pension
Application question(s):

CPPE qualification desirable Please confirm that you are a qualified Pharmacy Technician and are registered with the GPhC
Experience:

Pharmacy: 1 year (preferred)
Work Location: In person