Senior Pharmacist / Senior Pharmacy Technician

In the Department of Health and Social Care, we are proud of our purpose to enable everyone to live more independent, healthier lives for longer. To achieve this, and create a great place to work, we have four values: we are inclusive, we constantly improve, we challenge, and we are agile. If this sounds like an environment you would like to work in, we would love to hear from you.

Medicines are a key medical intervention and the second largest element of NHS expenditure. The departments Medicines Supply Team (MST) is responsible for overseeing the NHS pharmaceutical supply chain, ensuring that patients get the medicines they need. This work is focused on the management of medicines shortages and discontinuations.

Medicine supply is global, with the UK hugely dependent on medicines from the EU and from further afield. There are multiple threats to the continuity of supply of medicines to the UK, including (often unknown) disruptions to global manufacturing and/or transportation/supply chains, including disruptions in countries on which the UK supply chain is highly dependent, such as China and India.

There will always be a number of medicines shortage that need to be managed at any given time, but the government has a responsibility to take up-stream preventative action to help minimise the number and impact of those shortages.

For more critical shortages, the team escalate and discuss the issue with the Medicine Shortage Response Group, working with national clinical experts across the UK to develop management plans that can be adopted locally so that patients can be managed appropriately.

The Medicine Supply Team also provides professional pharmacy and operational input to other wider policy areas within the Medicines Directorate, including pricing policy, and sit on the pricing committee which is responsible for assessing and agreeing the price of all new branded medicines before they can be launched in England.

There is considerable stakeholder engagement in this role, including senior pharmacists within NHS England and the devolved administrations, regulatory bodies including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), global counterparts and senior DHSC officials and ministers. The postholder will also develop excellent relationships with individual pharmaceutical companies.

The successful candidate will demonstrate outstanding problem-solving skills, and effective partnership working with a range of internal and external stakeholders. They will also need the ability to grasp complex matters quickly and be able to translate this into clear advice. They will ideally also have digital experience to support the upkeep of the teams supply issues reporting portal and other potential platforms as they are launched.

The successful applicant would be joining a very flexible team that regularly needs to change focus and re-prioritise within the context of shifting threats to continuity of supply of medicines. The post-holder will need to be very adaptable and exhibit a capability to move to work on other aspects of medicines supply at short notice, whilst being supported in their professional development and working closely with pharmacists and pharmacy technicians across the team.

Please note if applying for the role on a part-time basis, the successful candidate will be required to work a minimum of 0.9 full-time equivalent (FTE).

Role responsibilities

• To support the management of medicines shortages and discontinuations, including assessing their impact, identifying the options and devising strategies for their management.

• To work with stakeholders to develop communications for the NHS which contain information about impending medicine supply issues and proposed management plans.

• To develop and strengthen links with NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency, the MHRA, other government departments and global counterparts, working with them to develop agreed approaches to managing medicines supply.

• Supporting the development of DHSC policy on the longer-term management of medicines supply problems and its implementation.
• Supporting the development, co-ordination and implementation of appropriate assurance processes and mitigation plans for any risks to medicines supply identified.

• Providing replies to correspondence, Parliamentary questions, briefing requests and press queries, working autonomously, accurately and confidently, within tight deadlines.

Key skills and experience required for the role

Essential:

• Experience of working effectively across disciplinary and organisational boundaries to deliver shared outcomes
• Experience of working flexibly and proactively to deliver priorities in a high‑pressure, fast‑moving environment.
• Experience of analysing and managing data to inform decision making
• Experience of producing clear, high‑quality written and verbal communications for a range of audiences
• Experience of working autonomously, prioritising competing tasks and meeting tight deadlines
• Current registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council.

Desirable:

• Experience of managing medicines supply issues at a national level.