Medication Safety Officer and Governance Lead
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a pharmacist with drive and enthusiasm to play a pivotal role in Medicines Safety and Clinical Governance across Whittington Trust.
Are you up for the challenge in building excellence?
Are you passionate about working with a wide range of healthcare professionals to promote a positive safety culture? If so, then this is the perfect opportunity for you.
We are looking for an experienced Pharmacist with extensive clinical pharmacy knowledge, excellent communication skills and a strive for excellence.
The post holder will be expected to forge strong professional relationships across the trust and be responsible for leading on patient safety and clinical governance initiatives relating to medicines management including Controlled Drugs. They will be pivotal in the ongoing development and delivery of the trust medication safety programme. The post holder will need to have the ability to work with a wide range of multidisciplinary teams and be a key member of a number of groups and committees concerned with patient safety internally as well as externally.
About us
Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.
Person Specification
Education/Qualifications
- MPharm (or equivalent)
- Registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council
- Further post graduate qualification Diploma/MSc in Pharmacy Practice or Clinical Pharmacy or equivalent
- Membership of the RPS and relevant professional clinical group (e.g. Meds Safety Network or UKCPA)
- Independent prescriber
Skills & Abilities
- High-level clinical skills sufficient to engage in appropriate dialogue with senior clinicians around complex clinical cases.
- Good written and oral communication skills and able to communicate with patients and all grades of healthcare staff (verbally and in writing).
- Good negotiation skills and the ability to influence senior pharmacy and medical staff, the multidisciplinary team and management.
- Experience of supervising and training junior pharmacists and wider pharmacy team members
- Experience of providing education and training to pharmacy staff, nursing staff and doctors.
- Good interpersonal and negotiation skills.
- Good problem-solving & numeracy skills
- Ability to evaluate and to plan service developments
- Understand, articulate and apply the principles of change management to the healthcare setting
- Demonstrates abilities to drive quality improvement and digital innovation to support medicines safety
Knowledge & Experience
- Demonstrates a whole-system patient-focused approach to work.
- Good understanding of the role of medication safety & clinical governance within the acute setting and how this supports patient care.
- Good understanding of the role of medication safety & clinical governance within the community setting and how this supports patient care.
- Good working knowledge of clinical governance and medicines management issues.
- Relevant clinical experience from working in an acute hospital setting.
- Appropriate knowledge of the legal requirements when dealing with and processing Controlled Drugs
- Involvement in the writing of clinical guidelines and medicines policies.
- Experience as a line manager.
- Experience of appraising staff and giving feedback.
- Experience in education and training and acting as a clinical supervisor.
- Experience of conducting medicines management audits and producing action plans and reports, based on data.
- Experience of coordinating drug recalls/MHRA alerts/CAS and clinical alerts.
- Knowledge of national bodies responsible for supporting clinical governance and medicine safety in the acute hospital setting.
- Experience of conducting medication error investigations and producing action plans linked to service improvement.
- Experience of contributing to, or leading quality improvement projects.
- An understanding of what integrated care is and how this applies to Pharmacy.
- Knowledge of the wider NCL healthcare system and priorities.
- An understanding of how digital tools / EPR functionality can improve clinical practice in the inpatient setting.
- Working within the PSIRF and CQC Framework.
Personal Qualities
- Reliable, Self-motivated.
- Able to set realistic goals and outcomes and use these to motivate themselves and their team.
- Able to work under pressure whilst maintaining accuracy and attention to detail.
- Able to work on own initiative or as part of a multidisciplinary team.
- Demonstrates initiative, and motivation & enthusiasm for the post.
- Commitment to continuing personal development.
- Knowledge and understanding of equality and diversity issues and how personally can make a positive difference to this agenda.
- Ability to articulate their own leadership style
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
£66,274 to £73,496 a year inclusive of Inner HCAs per annum
