Vacancy: Clinical Pharmacist

Post title: Clinical Pharmacist
Working hours: Full time

Location:
Trumpington Street Medical Practice (TSMP)
Newnham Walk Surgery (NWS)
Lensfield Medical Practice (LMP)

Reports to: Clinical Directors
Supervision: Practice GP

Job Summary

The clinical pharmacist is an integral part of the team, using and sharing pharmacy expertise to support the practice in effective medicines management and optimal patient care.

The clinical pharmacist will work across the CAM Medical Primary Care Network area in our pharmacy team. Work undertaken at the practices will be determined according to their existing and developing systems and will include some or all of the responsibilities  noted below.

Job Responsibilities

Medication Review and Optimisation

• Respond to pharmacy queries to include clarifying doses and/or products and give appropriate alternatives when availability issues occur.
• Discuss medication issues with patients as needed and appropriate by telephone, e.g. adverse effects/interactions, overdose/inadvertent ingestion, OTC remedies, queries from practice dispensary, queries from care homes.
• Discuss specific patient and prescribing issues (e.g. complicated regimes/polypharmacy, compliance difficulties, multiple adverse effects, medication reduction regimes) with other clinicians as necessary
• Face to face and video consultations with patients are less common but may include:
  • Discuss medication issues as needed and as appropriate
  • Carry out medication reviews
  • Review and continue repeat medications for new patients who have just registered with the practice, and suggest GP medication review where appropriate

Care Home Medication Reviews

• Support GPs with management of care home residents
• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multi-morbidity and poly-pharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (if an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests
• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

Long Term Condition Clinics

According to experience and training undertake chronic disease reviews and medicine optimisation according to practice guidelines:

• Hypertension (lifestyle advice and medication initiation and optimisation)
• Diabetes (joint clinic with practice nurse, with referral to GP/community diabetes nurse specialist/secondary care diabetes advice line)
• CHD (medicines optimisation, with referral to GP where necessary)
• Respiratory (medicines optimisation, with referral to GP where necessary)
• Chronic pain management (responding to patient or GP requests for review)

Medicines Reconciliation

• Review secondary care requests for new medication (as communicated by discharge summaries, outpatient letters, etc.), raise any queries with relevant GP and discuss how to respond when inappropriate prescribing requests arise.
• Deal with anticoagulant start/stop requests from secondary care and contact patients who have defaulted on INRs

Unplanned Admission Prevention

• Devise and implement practice searches to identify cohorts of patients most likely to be at risk of an unplanned admission and readmissions from polypharmacy
• Work with practice team to put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.

Medicines Information / Education

• Monitor and inform colleagues as relevant about ongoing prescribing issues, e.g. new guidelines (national and local), new products being asked for by secondary care, manufacturing and supply problems, new prescribing restrictions or contraindications, and  individual and systematic errors made by colleagues
• Advise on cost effective prescribing and prescribing budget issues

Prescribing Systems and Policies

• Assist in identifying patients in need of medication review and developing systems to meet this need
• Work with the GPs and the practice teams to develop and implement safe and efficient prescribing policies and strategies for CAM Medical Primary Care Network to maximise efficiency and reduce wastage
• Suggest and design audits in relation to prescribing targets, implementation of locality policies and the

Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF)

• Work with the GPs and practice managers on delivering targets for the local prescribing quality schemes
• Monitor CAM Medical Primary Care Network’s prescribing performance and advise on changes to practice prescribing as appropriate
• Oversight and audit of high risk drug monitoring

Medicines safety

• Identify national and local policy and guidance that affects patient safety through the use of medicines, including MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and emerging evidence from clinical trials

Liaison with community and hospital pharmacies

• Support integration of CAM Medical Primary Care Network within community and hospital pharmacies and proactively manage patients at risk of medicine related problems on discharge, to provide continuity of care

Equality and Diversity

The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:

• Acting in a way that recognises the importance of people’s rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with Practice / consortium procedures and policies, and current legislation
• Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues
• Behaving in a manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non-judgmental and respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights

Personal / Professional Development

The post-holder will participate in any training programme implemented by the Practice as part of this employment; such training to include:

• Undertake Clinical Pharmacist CPPE course, working towards independent prescriber
• Clinical supervision
• Participate in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development
• Take responsibility for own development, learning and performance and demonstrate skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar work
• Establish links with a wider professional network

Quality

The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the Practice and will:

• Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk
• Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision
• Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the team’s performance
• Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients’ needs
• Effectively manage own time, workload and resources

Communication

The post-holder should recognise the importance of effective communication within the team and will strive to:

• Communicate effectively with other team members
• Communicate effectively with patients and carers
• Recognise people’s needs for alternative methods of communication and respond accordingly

Contribution to the Implementation of Services

The post-holder will:

• Apply practice policies, standards and guidance
• Discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work.

Teaching / Training

Participate in the education of trainees (GPs, medicals students and other health care professionals) in the practice setting

Confidentiality

In the performance of the duties outlined in this Job Description, the post-holder will have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carer’s, CAM Medical Primary Care Network staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access  to information relating to the CAM Medical Primary Care Network as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential. Information requested by individual members will be collated and authorised through  formal channels.

Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the Practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the Practice policies and procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of  personal and sensitive data.