Job Title: Pharmacy Technician Job Purpose: Provide technical support to the clinical pharmacist and other pharmacy services within general practice and the Primary Care Network (PCN) to ensure professional operational standards and excellence in pharmaceutical care and safety are maintained Ensure delivery of safe, effective and efficient systems for medicines related clinical correspondence, repeat prescribing, medicines optimisation, reducing medicines waste and maximising patient outcomes Key Responsibilities: Undertake a patient supporting role to ensure effective medicines use, through shared-decision making conversations with patients. Carry out medicines optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews, and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.
Support, as determined by the PCN, medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings and linking with local community pharmacists. Provide specialist expertise, where competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities. Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients. Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive schemes and patient safety audits. Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g. use of antibiotics), supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services.
Reconcile the medications of patients whose care is transferred back to primary care in a timely and effective manner liaising with patients and other providers to ensure patients receive appropriate medication on discharge. Proactively engage with patients whose care has been transferred to reduce potential readmission including identifying and rectifying unexplained variation. Work with pharmacy service team to develop safe, effective and efficient systems for the repeat prescribing of medication at scale across the four GP sites. Work with pharmacy service team to develop and implement systems to ensure the effective and continuous supply of medication to high risk patients.
Work with pharmacy service team to develop and implement systems to ensure safe and effective management of high risk medication. Work with pharmacy service team to develop and implement changes to medicines in line with MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local or national guidance. Provide feedback and seek advice from pharmacist for patients where the post holder has clinical concerns around competence to safely manage their medications. Manage requests to prescribe medication from specialists in line with Doncaster CCG formulary and locally agreed guidelines.
Update patient medication records in line with incoming clinical correspondence. Refer patients to their community pharmacist for support with using their medicines. To provide advice to GPs, staff and patients in changes to prescribing to support the improvement of prescribing safety, quality and cost effectiveness. To respond to medication queries from patients and staff in a professional manner referring to the appropriate clinician in accordance with protocols and personal and professional boundaries.
Provide support to patients to maximise the benefit from their medication. Provide telephone support for patients with medication queries. Provide professional telephone and written advice and support to patients and their carers. To maintain full and complete records of all patient contacts using appropriate clinical templates and coding.
Work with the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes, and reducing wastage. Supervise practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests, so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests. Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across PCNs, supporting practices with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic Prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems, and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines. Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
Develop relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care, and mental health.