Employer Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Aintree University Hospital Town Liverpool Salary £55,690 - £62,682 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 17/11/2025 23:59
Head of Education & Training - Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff
Band 8a
Job overview
PHARMACY DEPARTMENT
Head of Education and Training - Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff
Band 8A (37.5 hours per week)
Are you a forward-thinking, self-motivated Pharmacy Technician with a passion for workforce development and education? Do you have a desire to pave the way for Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacy Support Staff? Here at University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG) we are excited to offer an opportunity for a dynamic and experienced individual to join us as our Head of Education and Training – Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff.
UHLG operates from four hospital sites: Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool Women’s Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, alongside a host of community services. As a major healthcare provider, we offer general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services that extend to more than two million people across the North West.
We are welcoming applications from individuals with the passion and drive to share our vision and values to support our organisational reputation for excellence and innovation.
Main duties of the job
In this senior leadership role, you will work closely with the Lead Pharmacist – Education and Training to co-design and deliver a Trust-wide pharmacy education and training strategy. With a specific focus on pharmacy technicians and support staff, you will shape the future of the workforce across all UHLG hospital sites.
Demonstrating strong strategic and operational leadership skills role, you will ensure that our pharmacy technical staff are supported, developed, and future-ready, through structured development pathways, responsive training programmes, and close partnership with national bodies and education providers.
Working for our organisation
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust comprises Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital & Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
We are part of NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, formed on 1 Nov 2024 from the coming together of LUHFT and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust. The Group was born from a shared aim to improve the care we provide our patients.
UHLG is one of the largest employers in the region, with over 16,800 colleagues dedicated to caring for our communities - from birth and beyond.
For the 630,000 people across Merseyside, we are their local NHS. We provide general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services for more than two million people in the North West.
Aintree University Hospital is the single receiving site for adult major trauma patients in Cheshire and Merseyside and hosts a number of regional services including an award-winning stroke facility. Broadgreen Hospital is home to elective surgical, diagnostic and treatment services, together with specialist patient rehabilitation. Liverpool Women’s Hospital specialises in the health of women and babies, delivering over 7,200 babies in the UK’s largest single site maternity hospital each year. The Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in the country to provide inpatients with 100% single bedrooms and focuses on complex planned care and specialist services.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
· Develop and implement a Group-wide pharmacy education strategy for pharmacy technicians and support staff (excluding aseptic and radiopharmacy).
· Identify training needs and design targeted development programmes aligned to service and regulatory requirements.
· Lead on PTPT (Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technician) recruitment, training, and development.
· Provide line management for Pharmacy Education and Training Technicians, including appraisals and competency assessments.
· Serve as UHLG’s key representative with the ICB, NHSE, and education providers for pharmacy technical education.
· Maximise workforce development opportunities via the apprenticeship levy and other funding streams.
· Champion practice-based research and contribute to the evidence base through publication and dissemination.
· Oversee the creation of training materials and resources, ensuring accessibility and effectiveness for a diverse workforce
· Actively promote the role and professional development of pharmacy technicians and support staff.
Person specification
Qualifications
* Masters degree (L7 degree) or equivalent indepth/extensive experience in leading technical services
* NVQ Level 3 / BTEC in Pharmacy Services or equivalent nationally recognised qualification
* Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council as a Pharmacy Technician
* Teaching qualification
Experience
* Currently employed in a senior role as a Pharmacy Technician leading pharmacy staff
* In-depth experience of hospital pharmacy operational management across a range of areas
* Significant experience of providing education and training including preparing and delivering presentations, training packs and other training materials
* Management experience including recruitment, appraisal, training, leadership, motivation, sickness absence and participation in grievance or disciplinary procedures
* Experience of change management and/or project work that influenced change
* Regular liaison with other senior hospital staff and external agencies
* Experience of multidisciplinary working to deliver Trust initiatives or resolving issues
* Management of pay and/or non-pay budgets
* Experience of developing funding requests and monitoring outputs
* Experience in risk management and incident investigation
Knowledge and skills
* Demonstrate an understanding of current pharmacy and NHS issues relating to technical and support staff roles and how E I July 2025 they operate in secondary care
* Awareness of national strategy for development of technical pharmacy roles
* Training methods to support effective training provision
* Coaching and development techniques
* Ability to interpret and apply professional standards and medicines legislation as it applies to all areas of pharmacy practice and its application to policies & procedures
* Awareness of and a commitment to the Clinical Governance Agenda
* Knowledge of a range of management topics including, performance capability, disciplinary and financial management, service improvement.
* Have a good understanding of the funding streams available to support continuing education and development
* Proactively provide suggestions, ideas, and solutions for service improvement
* Excellent planning, organisation and time management skills, with the ability to prioritise own workload and that of others
* Ability to act on own initiative, under pressure and making long term plans with minimal supervision.
* Ability to network and bring innovation that impacts across other services.
* Ability to write clear concise reports
* Confidence to present cases to a large group of staff whilst maintaining a clear message
* Strong interpersonal communication skills - written
* Strong interpersonal and communication skills - oral
* Excellent presentation skills
* Skilled negotiator with influencing skills
* Ability to engage and motivate staff to deliver on service objectives and work well as a team
* Ability to delegate appropriately maintaining team motivation and clarity of purpose to deliver objectives
* Resilient: ability to remain calm in difficult and challenging situations
* Ability to handle conflict and complaints/concerns
* High degree of computer literacy including database searching and manipulation of spreadsheets
Personal attributes
* Accurate and methodical – good attention to detail
* Enthusiasm for the role
* Ability to inspire the team and sell the vision for service delivery
* Resilient: able to cope and remain calm in difficult situations, competing demands and tight timescales
* Flexible, adaptable
* Persuasive and ability to negotiate.
Other
* Occupational Health Clearance
* Participation in evening, weekend and bank holiday working to meet the needs of departmental service delivery
* Ability to travel across sites
* Significant, relevant and ongoing personal CPD maintain fitness to practice
Please ensure you check the email account (including junk/spam boxes) from which you apply regularly as we will use this to contact you regarding your application.
Posts advertised to ‘internal staff’ are open to employees of hospitals within University Hospitals of Liverpool Group and you should confirm your employment within your application form.
Note: Under current Home Office Immigration Rules we are currently unable to offer right to work visa sponsorship for Band 2 and 3 roles with a salary of less than £25,000 pa as they do not meet the UK Visas & Immigration criteria.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview. We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.
Candidates applying for the role of Healthcare Assistant on the staff bank should note that due to the nature of the role, workers must be aged 18 or above when commencing in post. Applicants are therefore welcome from those aged over 18 or within 3 months’ of their 18 th birthday.
The Trust is committed to promoting a healthy work-life balance and achieve fair, equitable and consistent practice. We welcome flexible working requests and will consider a variety of flexible working arrangements from day one of your employment. Not all roles are suitable for every flexible working opportunity all of the time. Flexible working options may include reduced hours, compressed hours, fixed shifts, time back in lieu and home working.
The Trust is committed to promoting equality and diversity; we value the contribution of individual talent, skills, knowledge and experience and aim for a workforce demography representative of the local community. We encourage applicants from the following groups that are currently under-represented in our workforce black, Asian and minority ethnic, lesbian, gay, bisexual and Transgender (LGBTQ+), disabled, male and age 16-24.
Trust policy requires that the cost of submitting & processing the successful applicant/s DBS application be recovered via salary deduction following start in post. The amount of £23 (standard disclosure) or £43 (enhanced disclosure) will be deducted from salary, in manageable monthly instalments for up to 3 months following commencement of employment. Bank posts require upfront payment. DBS applications submitted from 2nd December will be subject to the new DBS fee of £26.50 (standard) and £54.50 (Enhanced).
From April 2017, Skilled visa applicants and their adult dependant(s) will be required to provide a criminal record certificate from each country they have lived in consecutively for 12 months or more in the past ten years.
Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.
This organisation has a zero-tolerance approach to the abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults. All staff must ensure they adhere to the organisations safeguarding children and adults’ policy and comply with the Local Safeguarding Children and Adult Board procedures.
Staff should be mindful of their responsibility to safeguard children and adults in any activity performed on behalf of the organisation in line with the requirements of statutory guidance and legislation.
All employees (and volunteers)are expected maintain their safeguarding knowledge and skills by completing mandatory safeguarding training which includes understanding and recognising the signs of abuse and neglect and taking appropriate action.
As an organisation, we have adopted the Merseyside Domestic abuse workplace scheme which supports our staff who are experiencing Domestic Abuse /any forms of sexual violence.
If you have any personal requirements that will enable you to participate in our recruitment process please contact a member of the Recruitment Services by phone on 0151 706 4666 at the earliest opportunity to ensure that measures can be put in place to enable your application for this post.
Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Application numbers
This vacancy may close early if it receives a high number of applications. Please complete and submit your application in good time to avoid disappointment.
Name Mark Peasley Job title Lead Clinical Pharmacist - Education and Training Email address mark.peasley@liverpoolft.nhs.uk Telephone number 0151 529 3987
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