Job opportunities

Job responsibilities
Overview

We are seeking to recruit 1 post to fill a vacancy in our PCN.

As a Clinical Pharmacist in a Penwith GP practice you will manage your own clinics to see patients for medication reviews, assist the practice team with prescribing related issues and treat patients with uncomplicated acute illness. You will help support the Penwith PCN with core medicine optimisation activities and ensure the safe and effective use of medicines across the Penwith area of Cornwall.

The post holder will be an integral part of the practice team at the practice(s) working as part of the multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants and reception/administrators, as well as a member of the wider PCN pharmacy team.

Duties will include medicines reviews, independent prescribing, diagnosis and treatment of non-complex acute illness, patient reviews and interventions and expertise to the wider clinical and administrative teams within the practice.

Key responsibilities

• Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using expert knowledge or medicines for specific disease areas
• Be a prescriber, or completing training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the GP practice team
• Be responsible for the care management of patients with chronic disease and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially older people, people in care homes, those with multiple co-morbidities (in particular frailty, COPD and asthma) and people with learning disability or autism (through STOMP Stop Over Medication Programme)
• Provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients at the PCNs practice(s) and to help in tackling inequalities
• Provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation (including ensuring prescribers in the practice conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services
• Through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care
• Have a leadership role in supporting further integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage general practice workload
• Develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across PCNs and the wider health and social care system
• Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols, clinical research with medicines, liaison with specialist pharmacists (including mental health and reduction of inappropriate antipsychotic use in people with learning disabilities), liaison with community pharmacists and anticoagulation
• Be part of a professional clinical network and have access to appropriate clinical supervision

Wider responsibilities

• Help support the safe and effective operation of the prescribing system in the GP practice, including updating repeat medication regimes, issuing of appropriate acute prescriptions, ordering relevant laboratory testing, and where necessary completing patient referrals (for example audiology, x-ray, diabetes prevention schemes)
• Deal with appropriate patient presentations, such as minor illnesses, without direct GP involvement/provide pharmaceutical input to chronic disease management, as appropriate
• Provide make every contact count public health education interventions to patients
• Provide pharmaceutical support to a designated group of GP practices or care settings to enable them to develop, implement and monitor an agreed prescribing plan which meets the objectives of the medicines management plan
• Assist practices/ care settings in developing formularies, guidelines and policies to ensure the implementation of NICE guidelines, National Service Frameworks and the requirements of the medicines-related aspects of the GMS contract
• Advise GPs, care staff and primary health care teams on risk management processes relating to the prescribing and monitoring of specialist drugs e.g. controlled drugs and those subject to shared care arrangements
• Support practices to review specific areas of prescribing, specified by the line management or identified with the GP prescribing lead, including the interpretation of e-PACT data and the use of practice information to review prescribing and identify areas for action
• Assist with the development and ongoing review of practice policy with regard to repeat prescribing systems and repeat dispensing to encourage the implementation of prescribing guidance and monitoring guidelines where appropriate
• Liaise with Community Pharmacists to encourage them to reinforce changes made, encouraging them to identify savings which can be achieved with regard to generics, dose optimisations etc. and to assist in building their relationship with the practice
• Answer any medicine related queries from GPs, care settings, practice staff, PALS, social care staff and the general public in a timely and appropriate manner, using professional judgement where specific guidance is unavailable
• Provide advice and support to improve the disease registers within each practice to ensure all suitable patients are identified and offered suitable treatment and monitoring for their condition
• Facilitate and participate in multi-disciplinary meetings related to prescribing topics and to engage in the training of other healthcare professionals and practice staff on matters relating to medicines usage
• Attend primary/secondary care interface meetings in designated specialist therapeutic areas to improve the cost effective and evidence based use of medicines across locality and develop links with the hospital pharmacists involved in these areas
• Undertake any other duties appropriate to the grade as allocated by line management.

Responsibilities for physical and financial resources

• Contribute to, and promote the delivery of, safe, effective and cost-efficient prescribing across primary and secondary care to achieve the most effective use of the medicines resource at both practice level and across the entire health economy
• Contribute to, and promote the delivery of, safe, effective and cost-efficient prescribing across primary and secondary care to achieve the most effective use of the medicines resource at both practice level and across the entire health economy
• Analyse and use web based prescribing data (PACT and e-PACT) at practice to facilitate appropriate prescribing habits and keep drug budgets within limits. Evaluate this information to identify areas of increased expenditure and advise on actions to be taken to ensure prescribing is cost effective and evidence based
• Evaluate GP practices position with respect to QOF or other incentive schemes including achievement of both financial and quality targets and communicate this to practices updating the plan with the practice
• Be responsible for the correct use and security of all equipment, information and data used.

Communications and leadership

• Advise community pharmacists in the vicinity of where prescribing and medicines management developments and/or changes are planned so they may anticipate the impact on their pharmacies and give a consistent message to patients
• Be aware of, and monitor, the advice given to practices by representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and to counter the impact of inappropriate information to prescribers.

Policy and Service Development

• Support the development of prescribing policy in individual practices and care settings, the implementation of that policy and be involved in the development of policy in discreet areas of prescribing, involving working with clinicians in both primary and secondary care.