The post-holder is a Clinical Pharmacist. The role is 1 day per week, with potential increase in hours in the near future.
The Clinical Pharmacist acts within their professional boundaries, working alongside a team of pharmacists in general practice within the wider PCN. They will improve patients' health outcomes and the efficiency of the primary care team by providing direct, accessible, and timely medicines and expertise including face‑to‑face contact with patients.
The post-holder will be an integral part of the general practice team, as well as part of a wider pharmacist network and multi‑disciplinary team. This includes being a conduit of patient medicine information into and out of hospitals. They will work to optimise medication issues to improve patient care and safety, and support clinical staff in the management of patients.
As part of their employment, the post-holder will achieve qualifications from an accredited training pathway, including independent prescribing, equipping the Clinical Pharmacist to be able to practise and prescribe safely and effectively in a primary care setting. The supervision and mentorship network will be provided to support the Clinical Pharmacist.
Main duties of the job
- Work within a multidisciplinary, patient‑facing team to clinically assess, treat & prescribe for patients using advanced medicines expertise; manage long‑term conditions & complex polypharmacy, elderly, frail, care home residents & those with COPD, asthma, learning disabilities or autism (including STOMP).
- Conduct structured medication reviews, improve adherence, reduce waste, promote self‑care & address health inequalities.
- Lead medicines optimisation, antimicrobial stewardship & quality improvement; contribute to QOF, enhanced services & NICE/CQC standards.
- Be a contact for medicines queries, shared care protocols, anticoagulation, high‑risk drug monitoring, liaise with community, hospital & specialist pharmacists.
- Deliver clinics, home visits & domiciliary reviews; manage complex caseloads, therapeutic monitoring & repeat prescribing systems.
- Support integration across health & social care, supervise safe storage & disposal of medicines, maintain accurate records, ensure safeguarding compliance & encourage cost‑effective prescribing.
- Provide education, audit & research input to improve prescribing quality; support vulnerable patients, those at risk of admission & with substance dependency or severe mental illness.
- Participate in professional networks with structured supervision; contribute to governance, complaints review, mandatory training, appraisal, public health campaigns & service development.
- Undertake additional duties as required by workload & staffing needs.
Job responsibilities
- Work as part of a multi‑disciplinary team in a patient‑facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using specialist knowledge of medicines.
- Be a prescriber, or complete training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the general practice team.
- Provide specialist expertise in medicines, address public health and social care needs, and tackle inequalities.
- Lead person‑centred medicines optimisation; contribute to QOF and enhanced services.
- Support patients to use their medications effectively through structured reviews.
- Support further integration with wider healthcare teams (community and hospital pharmacy).
- Develop relationships with other pharmacy professionals across the health and social care system.
- Take a central role in shared care protocols, clinical research with medicines, liaison with specialist pharmacists, community pharmacists, and anticoagulation.
- Maintain accurate clinical records and support safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs.
- Provide pharmaceutical consultations, manage a caseload of complex patients, and deliver long‑term condition clinics and home visits.
- Practice cost‑effective prescribing and embed a robust repeat prescribing system.
- Support clinicians with patients suffering from drug and alcohol dependencies and signpost them to appropriate healthcare professionals.
- Participate in public health campaigns (e.g., COVID‑19 or flu clinics).
- Fulfil all mandatory training and induction programmes, and contribute to clinical governance.
- Attend formal appraisals annually and review progress on objectives with managers.
Person Specification
Clinical knowledge and skills
- Ability to communicate complex and sensitive information effectively with people at all levels by telephone, email and face‑to‑face.
- Excellent interpersonal, influencing, negotiation and organisational skills with the ability to constructively challenge the views and practices of managers and clinicians.
- Understanding of safeguarding adults and children.
- Ability to promote best practice regarding all pharmaceutical matters.
- Ability to work within own scope of practice and understand when to refer to GPs.
- Ability to record accurate clinical notes.
- Good clinical system IT knowledge.
- Plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long‑term conditions.
Qualifications
- GPC registered pharmacist.
- Proof of relevant professional and educational qualifications, coupled with details of any training.
- Enrolled in or qualified from an approved 18‑month training pathway or equivalent that equips them to practise and prescribe safely and effectively in a primary care setting (e.g., the CPPE clinical pharmacist training pathways).
- Hold or be working towards a GPhC independent prescribing qualification.
- Working towards faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
- Minor ailments certification.
- MUR and repeat dispensing certification.
Experience
- Experience in managing pharmacy services in primary care.
- An appreciation of the nature of general practice and primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing.
- Minimum of two years working as a pharmacist demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
- Understanding of the new NHS landscape, including the relationships between individual practices, PCNs and commissioners.
- Ability to support Pharmacy Technician.
- In‑depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence‑based healthcare.
- Understanding of the mentorship process.
- Experience of working autonomously.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and requires a Disclosure to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
