Job Description
PRIMARY CARE NETWORKS IN CITY AND HACKNEY
PCN CLINICAL PHARMACIST – SHOREDITCH PARK & CITY PCN
Shoreditch Park Surgery | De Beauvoir Surgery | The Hoxton Surgery | The Lawson Practice | The Neaman Practice
Job Title: Primary Care Network (PCN) Clinical Pharmacist – Band 7
Salary: £43,000 - £52,000 depending on experience
Contract: 18 months Fixed Term
Hours: Full time (37.5 hours)
Reporting to: GP Clinical Lead within the GP Practice on a day-to-day basis
Accountable to: Primary Care Network Clinical Director, Shoreditch Park & The City PCN
Job Summary
Groups of GP Practices in City and Hackney have come together to form 8 Primary Care Networks (PCNS) each covering a total population of between 30,000-56,000. The purpose of these PCNs is to enable GP practices to work together in a collaborative way to develop and deliver network-based services that respond to the needs of the local population.
The Shoreditch Park & City PCN in City and Hackney is seeking to recruit a PCN Clinical Pharmacist to develop and support medicines optimisation work within the GP practices in the PCN covering a population of approximately 56,000.
The post holder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management and work proactively with other healthcare professionals as part of a multidisciplinary team across the PCN. The successful candidate will join a core Pharmacy Team and will be supported by a Senior Clinical Pharmacist and a GP Supervisor. Regular development sessions, teaching, training and opportunities to upskill will be provided.
Clinical Pharmacists have a key role in supporting delivery of the new network contract Directly Enhanced Service (DES) specifications including Extended Access.
The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will need to be committed to improving health and putting patients first. Key qualities will be the ability to build relationships and work collaboratively with the practice team and build rapport with patients. Demonstrable general pharmaceutical skills and knowledge in core areas, including long term conditions, together with a good understanding of general practice are essential.
Primary roles and responsibilities of PCN Pharmacists
The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will:
- work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using their expert knowledge of medicines to support the management of acute and long-term conditions
- be a prescriber, or completing training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the general practice team;
- be responsible for the management of patients with long term conditions and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially the elderly and those with multiple co-morbidities (in particular frailty, COPD, asthma, diabetes and cardiovascular disease) and people with learning disabilities 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 PCN’s practice(s) and to help in tackling inequalities;
- provide leadership in the practice on medicines optimisation systems and processes and quality improvement
- contribute to meeting the Quality and outcomes Framework (QoF) targets, enhanced services and the Investment and Impact Fund (IIF) indicators
- through Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs), support to improve the patient’s knowledge of their conditions and associated treatments and therefore improve adherence to medication, reduce waste and promote selfcare.
- Have a lead role in supporting integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) as part of the pharmacy integration agenda to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage general practice workload;
- build 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).
Key aspects of PCN pharmacist role
Patient facing role undertaking face to face medications reviews for:
- patients with long term conditions on polypharmacy
- housebound patients
- chronic disease management areas identified as a priority area within the PCN
- Review patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required.
- Review on-going need for each medicine, assess monitoring requirements and support patients to ensure treatment is safe, appropriate and optimised for maximum clinical benefit.
- Discuss recommendations and outcomes with relevant members of the PCN team and provide appropriate and timely follow up.
- Support patients to optimise medicines by providing additional written patient information leaflets, and liaise with community pharmacists about the need for special requirements to aid adherence.
Management of Common/Minor Ailments
- Support practices in improving patient access for minor ailments and acute presentations.
- Promote the importance of self-care and signpost patients to community pharmacy led services e.g. hypertension case finding, new medicines service etc.
Medicines Information to Practice Staff and Patients
- Support resolution of medicines queries from the practice team, PCN team, community pharmacists and patients.
- Provide medicines optimisation updates at clinical meetings on to inform and improve prescribing within the practice.
- Analyse, interpret and present relevant prescribing data, including audit findings, to practice staff regularly to highlight prescribing issues.
- Communicate recommended actions relating to medication and medical device safety alerts.
Medicines Reconciliation
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 resolve medication issues upon discharge to ensure a seamless transfer of care for the patient.
Commissioned improvements for QIPP and medicines optimisation
Support the practice and the PCN in delivering the outcomes as required in the medicines section of the Clinical Commissioning Contract
Signposting
Be fully aware of the vast array of services available to support patients and signpost patients and refer appropriately e.g. social prescriber, specialist referral etc.
Repeat Prescribing
- Review, implement and support adherence to the practice repeat prescribing policy.
- Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions, flagging up those patients needing a review.
- Ensure patients on repeat prescriptions have the required monitoring and assessments undertaken as appropriate to their condition(s) and medicines prescribed.
Clinical Governance
- Communicate, action and support implementation of MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and other local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations.
- Undertake clinical audits in priority areas identified by the Medicines Optimisation Team or within the PCN and feedback results to practices and the PCN and support them in implementing recommendations.
- Support practices and PCNs in identifying and reporting onto NRLS any incidents relating to medicines. Be involved in investigating medicines incidents and identifying and implementing any required system improvements.
- Support implementation of shared care protocols in practice, including processes to improve monitoring of high- risk drugs.
- Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews.
- Identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through computer searches
- Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
Education and Training
Contribute to the provision of education and training on medicines optimisation and specific therapeutic areas to healthcare professionals within the PCN and to the wider ICB geography, including the PCN pharmacy professional network meetings.
Public Health
- To support public health campaigns.
- To provide specialist advice on all public health programmes available to the general public.
General
- Undertake any other work supporting medicines optimisation in GP practices and the PCN commensurate with the banding of the post and which is agreed between the postholder and the manager
Key Collaborative Working Relationships
The post-holder will be required to work with a wide range of stakeholders. It is important that the post holder recognises the roles of other colleagues to person-centred care, and liaises with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients including:
- Patients and Patient Participation Groups (PPGs)
- GPs, nurses and other practice staff
- Other healthcare professionals including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, optometrists, dentists, health and social care teams, dieticians etc.
- Locality / GP prescribing lead and Locality managers
- Community nurses and other allied health professionals
- Integration between general practice community and hospital pharmacy teams
- Ability to work as a member of a team within the PCN
- Collaboration with network resources to support care management plans and social prescribing
Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required (please see attached Person Specification)
- Has experience/awareness of the breadth of common acute and long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice.
- Minimum of 2 years post graduate experience in pharmacy, as demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
- Holds an independent prescribing qualification, is working towards a qualification or has the intention to complete this in the future.
- Demonstrates an understanding of the role of a clinical pharmacist within primary care and where it fits into and how it complements the practice team and the wider PCN team.
- Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision.
- Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
Health and Safety/Risk Management
An expectation is for all staff to have a commitment to promoting and maintaining a safe and healthy environment and be responsible for their own and others welfare. In addition, staff will be expected to undertake the statutory mandatory health and safety training and other training relevant to their specialist area of work.
Equality and Diversity
The post-holder must co-operate with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment and complete the required statutory mandatory training.
Patient Confidentiality
The post-holder should respect patient confidentiality at all times and not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the requirements of the role.
In view of the nature of the role, this job description is intended to provide an outline of the duties and responsibilities; it will be subject to review and amendment as necessary in consultation with the post holder.
Person Specification
The person specification describes the characteristics (skills, knowledge, experience and qualifications) that are needed to carry out the duties in the job description.
Criteria
Description
Essential
Desirable
Professional Registration
Registered as a pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council
Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Qualifications
Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent)
Specialist knowledge acquired through post-graduate clinical diploma level or equivalent training/experience
Independent prescriber or working towards/intent of gaining independent prescribing qualification
Skills, Knowledge & Experience
Minimum of 2 years post‐qualification experience
In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence‐based healthcare
Understand the importance of the PCN pharmacist role with NHS structure as a whole and understand the key national and local medicines optimisation priorities relevant to your role.
Is able to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for LTCs
Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients)
Good IT skills
Ability to obtain and analyse complex technical information
Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines
Produce timely and informative reports
Work effectively independently and as a team member
Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
Self-Motivated, positive attitude, adaptable, self-aware and able to gain respect, trust and co-operation quickly
Other
Commitment to equality and diversity
Information Governance toolkit completion
Current DBS check
Background and Support from the Medicines Optimisation Team
Primary Care Network (PCN) leads across City and Hackney are working closely with the City and Hackney place based Medicines Optimisation Team (MMT) to deliver a consistent approach to medicines optimisation across the health economy. The City and Hackney health system has a long history of innovative working and cross organisational collaboration to strive to deliver better health outcomes for the local population of approximately 339,000 patients.
We have a well-established track record in the delivery of a high standard of care for residents and patients across City and Hackney. City & Hackney was one of only 4 London CCGs to be rated as outstanding (approximately 12% of CCGs nationally were rated as outstanding) for the 2019/20 NHS Oversight Framework. In addition, City and Hackney was the top performing CCG area in England for 12 measures of care for people with long term conditions including management of blood pressure.
The Medicines Optimisation Team is keen to provide PCN Clinical Pharmacists in City & Hackney with additional support and opportunities including the provision of peer support, access to practice and borough level audits and clinical reports, locally accessible guidelines, support with formulary decisions and interface queries, and skills development to enable further clinical activities and patient support. The medicines optimisation team have commissioned digital clinical decision support tools to support risk stratification of patients to prioritise those most in need of a structured medication review and support safe, cost effective prescribing of medicines through pop up messages on GP systems.
The City and Hackney MOT has successfully delivered a range of different projects across the interface and were HSJ finalist in 2015. Candidates recruited into this role will be joining an established network of local pharmacists including the ICB medicines optimisation team, practice-based pharmacists, clinical specialist pharmacists, hospital, community pharmacists and other project pharmacists. The MMT is actively working to provide practice support to improve error reporting in primary care, delivery of audits and QIPP work, in addition to the delivery of targeted projects including hypertension clinics, medication review clinics, asthma and COPD clinics. The PCN Network DES states that pharmacists should be part of a professional clinical network. The C&H MOT run regular PCN network meetings for pharmacy professionals which include local and national medicines related updates and clinical teaching sessions from specialists. A range of clinical training has been provided during these sessions, including the management of hypertension, diabetes, opioid deprescribing and medication review in addition to many others. The network meetings also provide a space for PCN pharmacy professionals to provide input and share best practice to encourage peer to peer learning.
Job Types: Full-time, Fixed term contract
Contract length: 18 months
Salary: £43,000.00-£52,000.00 per year
Schedule:
- Monday to Friday
- Weekend availability
Work Location: One location
Application deadline: 24/02/2023
Reference ID: U0090-23-3211
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