PCN Senior Clinical Pharmacist

Job responsibilities

Primary Care Focus

1. The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with regards to prescription and medication queries and actioning prescriptions. They will help support the repeat prescriptions system, deal with acute prescription requests, and medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing, providing expertise in clinical medicines advice while addressing both public and social care needs of patient in the GP practice(s).

2. The post holder will ensure that the practice integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage workload. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within general practice.

Patient facing clinics

3. Manage clinics and own caseload within scope of practice for long term disease management e.g. hypertension, diabetes, asthma. Conduct clinical medication reviews for patients with complex polypharmacy, especially those with frailty and the elderly, people in care homes, those with multiple comorbidities and people with learning disabilities.

4. An outcome of these clinics to see a change in behaviour of patients with long term conditions such as better self-management and self-care.

5. Through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care, including those within a care home setting. Ensuring optimal patient care and reduction of unplanned hospital admissions and inappropriate A&E attendance.

6. Proactively engage with patients whose care has been transferred back to primary care.

7. As an independent prescriber, be responsible for adjusting medications and arranging monitoring when needed.

8. Refer patients, attend and contribute to multidisciplinary case conferences. Identifying key areas of need for vulnerable patients and formulating care plans.

Management of common/minor/self- limiting ailments

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

10. Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professional where appropriate.

Medicines information

11. Provide face to face and telephone clinics for patients to answer queries and concerns they may have regarding their medication. Signposting where appropriate to the appropriate healthcare professional in a timely manner.

12. Provide medication information to the practice staff and other healthcare teams e.g. community pharmacy. Suggesting solutions where needed and providing follow up with the most appropriate healthcare professional.

13. To support public health campaigns and provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.

Medicines Optimisation

14. Provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation (such as 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.

15. Provide support to the pharmacy technicians to ensure medicines reconciliation from clinical letters e.g. hospital discharges and out-patient clinic letters are completed accurately and in a timely manner.

16. Report back to ICB/secondary care pharmacy teams queries around requests for inappropriate shared care prescribing requests or non-formulary items.

17. Work with PCN pharmacy technicians to action ICB medicines management incentive schemes.

Repeat Prescribing

18. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required as per the repeat prescribing policy.

19. Responsible for reviewing and amending the repeat prescribing policy and ensuring practice adherence.

20. Ensure there are uniform protocols and searches for high-risk drug monitoring and safe and effective management of high risk medication

21. Ensuring an effective and continuous supply of medications to high-risk patients.

Risk Stratification

22. Responsible for management and Implementing systems to ensure these patients are reviewed and monitored appropriately.

23. Analyse, interpret and present prescribing information at practice and population level to support effective decision making and change in evidence based clinical practice.

24. Staff education and implementing systems to reduce the risk of medication-related harm.

Service development

25. 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). Where the new service is predominately medicines related to lead on the development across the PCN.

26. Monitor the effectiveness of the pharmacy wide team against indicative KPIs and clinical measures aligned to the medicines optimisation framework.

Medicines Quality Improvement programmes

27. Identify and provide leadership on areas of prescribing requiring improvement.

28. Undertake clinical audits of prescribing, feedback the results and provide leadership in implementing changes in conjunction with the practice team.

Medicines Safety

29. Provide leadership on quality improvement and clinical audit, as well as managing some aspects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework.

30. Work with the PCN pharmacy technicians and practices to identify patients affected by appropriate MHRA drug alerts, drug withdrawals and other local or national guidance.

31. 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 difficulties), liaison with community pharmacists and anticoagulation.

Care Quality

Commission and other regulatory bodies

32. Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved. Also to meet requirements that other regulators might impose.

Implementation of local and national

guidelines and formulary

recommendations

33. Be a prescriber and work with and alongside the general practice team.

34. Work to improve Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) either through reviewing clinical coding to improve disease registers or individual indicators, prescribing appropriate medications to ...