PCN Clinical Pharmacist

Cygnet PCN is seeking an enthusiastic and forward-thinking Clinical Pharmacist to join our GP practice network in High Wycombe.

The PCN is made up of four GP practices (Desborough and Hazelmere Surgery, Kingswood Surgery, Priory Surgery and Tower House Surgery), providing services for approximately 48,000 patients. The practices have a strong history of working together and have been making significant strides towards integrated working.

We are looking for an individual to develop and manage all aspects of medication management, supporting the GPs at the Practices.

The successful candidates will be part of a supportive network of Clinicians, Social Prescribers, Practice Managers and excellent administrative staff across all the Practices that make up the Cygnet PCN. This is an evolving role with huge scope for development.

Full details can be found in the Job Description and Person Specification.

Working arrangements can be flexible for the successful individuals. Full and part time hours would be considered. The post is currently a fixed term contract of 12 months working at Tower House Surgery and Priory Surgery, however, there is a possibility that this could be extended.

Informal enquiries and visits are welcome. Please apply via the NHS website. Previous applicants need not apply.

Main duties of the job The Clinical Pharmacist (CP) works as part of a multi-disciplinary team within General Practice in a patient facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using their expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas.

The post holder will be an integral part of the team, as well as part of a wider community groups and their multidisciplinary teams.

They will be prescribers, or training to become prescribers. They take responsibility for the care management of patients with chronic disease and undertake clinical medication reviews.

They will provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients and help tackle inequalities.

Clinical Pharmacists will provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services. Through structured medication reviews, clinical pharmacists will support patients with their medicines, reduce waste and promote self-care.

Clinical Pharmacists will have a leadership role in supporting further integration with the wider healthcare teams, to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and to help manage General Practice workload. The role has the potential to significantly improve quality of care and safety for patients.

All clinical pharmacists will be part of a professional network and will have access to appropriate clinical supervision.

About us The Cygnet Primary Care Network is an established Network serving 48,000 patients across 4 GP Practices in High Wycombe, a large, diverse town in Buckinghamshire.

You will become a key part of the team, already consisting of experienced GPs, supported by organised Nurses/Health Care Assistants, management and administrative teams as well as Paramedics, Social Prescribers, Pharmacy Technicians and other Clinical Pharmacists.

There is a friendly atmosphere established at all sites, along with a 'can do' work ethic. There is a loyal and well established team in place, with a low staff turnover rate.

All staff are invited to have an input into the development and smooth running of the PCN.

Job responsibilities The following are the core responsibilities of the PCN clinical pharmacist. There may be on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks. This will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels:

1. See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. COPD, asthma).
2. 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). Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.
3. Patient facing clinical medication review
4. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
5. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
6. Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review
7. 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.
8. Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments
9. Manage caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.
10. Signpost to community pharmacy and refer to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate.
11. Patient facing medicines support
12. Provide patient facing clinics for those with medicines queries.
13. Telephone medicines support
14. Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
15. Medicine information to practice staff and patients
16. Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggest and recommend solutions.
17. Provide follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
18. Unplanned hospital admissions
19. Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews.
20. Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high risk patient groups.
21. Management of medicines at discharge from hospital
22. Reconcile medicines 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.
23. Signposting
24. Ensure patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time.
25. Repeat prescribing
26. Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy.
27. 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. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
28. Identify 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.
29. Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components.
30. Information management
31. Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision-making.
32. Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the Accountable Clinical Director (ACD) for the network, feedback results and implement changes in conjunction with the ACD.
33. Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
34. Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations
35. 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).
36. Assist practices in seeing and 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.
37. Education and Training
38. Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
39. Care Quality Commission
40. Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
41. Public Health
42. Support public health campaigns. Provide specialist knowledge.
43. General within the practice
44. a. To work with your line manager to undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the roles and responsibilities.
45. b. To work with your line manager to access regular clinical supervision, to enable you to deal effectively with the difficult issues that people present.
46. c. To undertake all mandatory training and induction programmes.
47. d. To contribute to and embrace the spectrum of clinical governance.
48. e. To attend a formal appraisal with their 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.
49. f. To contribute to public health campaigns (e.g . click apply for full job details