Job Introduction
The Lead Pharmacist is responsible for medicines optimisation on behalf of the Business Unit (BU), working closely with the BU Quality Directorate and Chief Pharmacist to oversee medicines optimisation across the portfolio of children’s community services, providing support and guidance, direction and influencing colleagues to ensure organisational and BU medicine optimisation objectives are achieved.
The Lead Pharmacist represents HCRG Care Group Ltd locally and regionally at multi-organisational medicines optimisation meetings e.g medicines safety meetings, ICB Area Prescribing Meetings and regional pharmacy leads meetings, as well as within HCRG Care Group.
The Lead Pharmacist will provide high-quality specialist pharmacy advice and support to services across the Business Unit, to ensure legal, safe, and effective medicines optimisation, and will influence and support the development of strategy to promote innovation in medicines optimisation.
They will work with the Business Unit Operational Director, Head of Service: Quality, Safeguarding and Children in Care, Heads of Service; Clinical Service Managers, and Clinical teams to facilitate appropriate medicines optimisation activities.
The Lead Pharmacist will be responsible for ensuring that all statutory duties relating to medicines optimisation are met and systems are CQC compliant.
This role does offer flexible working from our Family Hubs & home working.
Main Responsibility
- Provide expert medicines optimisation and management advice on all matters relating to children’s community healthcare, including situations outside the scope of national protocols, policies, and guidelines
- Participate as an active member of the Eastern Regional Medicines Safety network, as well as the Organisational network, disseminating safety information and learning to colleagues within the Business Unit and to Pharmacy Lead colleagues within HCRG
- Monitor, analyse, interpret, and provide advice and support on medicines related data, clinical audit, and incident reports
- Provide written and verbal reports, accounts and feedback on any work undertaken for discussion at BU Quality & Safety meetings, BU Professional Leads Meetings and HCRG Medicines Optimisation Governance meetings
- Work with the Chief Pharmacist and BU Quality Leads to proactively support services to fulfil the medicines management requirements of the CQC and Home Office (HO), including developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and clinical guidelines, and supporting services to monitor and review their own performance
- Work with the Head of Service: Quality, Safeguarding and Children in Care, and the HCRG Chief Pharmacist, to identify improvements in medicines safety and medicines optimisation and support their implementation as part of continuous quality improvement.
- Attend Clinical Governance meetings to advise on medicines optimisation requirements as required.
- Undertake audits and site inspection visits where required, providing feedback, advice, and support as needed.
- Ensure principles of safe use and handling of medicines and Clinical Governance are built into all aspects of medicines optimisation within the services.
- Work with the BU Operational Service Managers support service staff to achieve and maintain consistent competencies with regard to Medicines Management.
Please see attached job description for a full list of responsibilities
The Ideal Candidate
Essential
- Professional registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).
- Vocational Masters Degree in Pharmacy (or equivalent)
- Minimum of 3 years post qualification experience
- Postgraduate qualification in clinical pharmacy or equivalent additional experience
- Previous experience in Primary Care or Community Health Care services
- Post-qualification experience of clinical pharmacy, medicines information and prescribing advice
- Effective negotiation skills and ability to persuade others
- Ability to critically appraise literature in order to analyse, interpret and evaluate clinical papers, clinical evidence, data and information from various sources to make judgements, decisions and provide recommendations.
- Experience of producing high level reports and presenting these at key committee meetings
Desirable
- Experience of chairing meetings and producing associated reports and action plans
- Experience of SystmOne Software
- Experience of the NHS Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)
- Experience of NHSBSA prescriber registration process and prescription form ordering processes
- Knowledge of ePACT data reporting
Other requirements:
Long periods of computer work and daily concentration on preparing reports, policies, analysing data and training materials; delivering training and medicines optimisation induction sessions; carrying out audits; attending meetings.
Frequent interruptions to answer queries from health care professionals and colleagues, which may be received at any time and may take precedence over other work depending on their urgency.
Please see attached Job Description for full Personal Specification.
Package Description
As a Lead Pharmacist, you will be part of our valued Community Paediatrics Team across Essex, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including:
- Band 8b salary with Agenda for Change T&Cs including NHS pension
- Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on every day purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
- Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
- Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well career coaching and counselling
- Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise
- An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year
- The pride of working for an organisation committed to the highest clinical and quality standards: with the majority of our rated services holding “good” or “outstanding” ratings from the Care Quality Commission.
About the Company
We change lives by transforming health and care.
Established in 2006 we are one of the UK's leading independent providers of community health and care services, working with health and care commissioners and communities to transform services with a focus on experience, efficiency and improved outcomes. We deliver and transform adult and children community health services, primary care services including urgent care, sexual health, dermatology and MSK services as well as adult social care and wellbeing services. Across England, we support communities of many millions and directly help more than half a million people each year - guided by our simple values: we care, we think, we do.
We're committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people who want to join our team. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company, so we work to provide facilities, work environment adjustments and technical solutions to be as inclusive of everyone.
While it doesn’t happen often, sometimes a role is very popular, and we’ll need to close it earlier than the date we’ve shown here. If you’re keen to join our team, we’d love to hear from you so please apply as soon as you can.
As you’d expect, safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults that we work with is of the utmost importance so we have policies and procedures in place to promote safeguarding and safer working practices and everyone who joins the team is subject to a safer recruitment process, including the disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.
Finally, we need to let you know that the company you’ll work for is part of HCRG Care Group Holdings Limited and by applying for this job we’ll need to process and hold information about you. If you would like to know a little more about how we use your information, please see our website's privacy policy.
