General Practice Pharmacist

JOB DESCRIPTION

JOB TITLE General Practice Pharmacist

FEDERATION [Employer hidden — view at passion-project.co.uk]

REPORTS TO Lead General Practice Pharmacists

NUMBER OF DIRECT REPORTS Not Applicable

LOCATION(S) Working in designated GP practices within [Employer hidden] area

ORGANISATIONAL CHART

JOB PURPOSE

Working as part of a team, the postholder will have and will develop clinical pharmacy skills that will improve safety, efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of prescribing in primary care.

All activity will be agreed according to the Federation prescribing action plan and as part of the planning process with the relevant GP practice/s. Clinical patient facing activities will only be undertaken with the agreement of GPs in the practice.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

Improving Safety

The post holder will:

• Develop, implement and manage the repeat prescribing system within GP Practices. Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review to the GP. Audit the system annually and develop and update the repeat prescribing protocol accordingly.
• Review medication requests, repeat prescriptions and hospital discharge summaries on behalf of the practice, working with GP staff to ensure appropriate decisions are made and safe, appropriate systems are operating.
• Ensure that all medicines are reconciled within 5 days of receipt of information associated with patient discharge. Gather and review all required patient information and liaise with relevant hospital, community and primary care colleagues to ensure the practice manages medicines correctly following transfer of care
• Utilise medicines information skills to undertake at least annual outcome focussed medication reviews considering all sources of medical and pharmaceutical information regarding the individual patient. Apply medicines optimisation principles for patients on 4 or more repeat medications, care home residents and the frail and elderly.
• Develop and manage prescription form security protocols and processes to ensure safe handling of prescription forms in the practice setting.
• Highlight to professional lead any issue which impacts on ability to deliver an equitable clinically effective service and assist in identifying possible solutions.
• Communicate complex pharmaceutical information regarding all aspects of medicines use in an understandable form patients and carers using negotiation, persuasion, motivation and counselling skills. This may include situations where there are barriers to understanding.
• Appropriately influence multi-disciplinary, general practice, and other healthcare teams within the Federation on prescribing and medicines management issues and network to promote the delivery of a high level of clinically effective care.

Independent Prescribing

The post holder will:

• Utilise the Independent Prescribing qualification, when achieved, as required and advised by the Lead GP Pharmacist and Federation.
• Undertake a prescribing role as appropriate.

Improving Quality

The post holder will:

• Improve prescribing quality through implementation of and compliance with the NI Formulary in particular those sections which are a priority for the practice and Federation including antimicrobial agents
• Responsible within the practice for facilitating implementation, monitoring and evaluation of disease management guidelines and related prescribing policies. Support and provide assistance to GP and nurse colleagues to achieve this.
• Work closely with the GPs, nurses and other practice healthcare staff to resolve day-to-day medicines issues through the application of pharmaceutical knowledge and expertise
• Undertake prescribing as soon as possible after appointment for an agreed cohort of patients as defined by competency and need
• Utilise expert pharmaceutical knowledge to create care plans in an agreed format for patients with long term conditions in partnership with GP clinical leads
• Analyse and interpret complex information from a variety of sources regarding individual patients including biochemistry, medication and clinical condition.
• Ensure consistency in prescribing across practices within the Federation
• Make effective use of practice systems to improve the health of patients e.g., through development and implementation of searches and audit

Improving Efficiency and Cost Effectiveness

The post holder will:

• Assist practices in delivering DHSSPSNI priorities and plans for medicines optimisation, health and well-being.
• Reduce levels of prescribing expenditure as appropriate in accordance with targets.
• Responsible for facilitation and development of organisational structures within each designated practice to manage all elements of prescribing including repeat and acute prescribing systems, generic prescribing, adoption of therapeutic tendering choices and product standardisation choices
• Establish and run searches using the practice clinical system, working in partnership with practice staff and the HSCB Pharmacy and Medicines Management staff to identify areas for improvements in quality and reductions in cost of prescribing
• Use practice systems and other technology appropriately to assist in the delivery of coordinated, appropriate care
• Develop systems and processes to carry out regular analysis of the practice’s prescribing i.e., data from practice clinical system, prescribing statements and Compass Reports to enable management of practice prescribing budget, identification of prescribing trends and to achieve the objectives of the GPP Business Case.
• Responsible for interpreting the above data and making practice recommendations for cost- effective, rational and safe prescribing based on same.
• Produce regular detailed reports on practice progress on reducing prescribing cost and achieving objectives and contribute to the collation of outcome data in order to evaluate the GPP role.
• Utilise relevant software for the recording of the interventions carried out and contribute to the development of the systems for intervention recording

Governance

The post holder will:

• Undertake regular clinical audit
• Participate in organisational audit as required
• Provide a training resource for primary care Health Care professionals and other relevant staff with respect to prescribing and medicines management.
• Comply with clinical governance policies of the practices and the Federation and apply clinical governance principles consistently
• Have regard to competency standards required of all prescribers
• Be aware of and reflect advice/requests in respect of good practice and professional guidance provided to the practice multidisciplinary team e.g., from GMC, NMC and RCGP
• Be aware of the legal and professional issues pertinent to working as a General Practice Pharmacist including duty to maintain effective registration and comply with requirements for fitness to practice, accountability and delegation
• Utilise the resources produced by the HSCB Pharmacy and Medicines Management Team as appropriate to your daily activity
• Undertake appropriate CPD to maintain competence for the tasks that are required; assess competence against criteria tailored to working as part of a practice team e.g., NICPLD General Practice Pharmacist Programme. Provide onward dissemination of this where appropriate.
• Contribute to incident reporting and participate in risk management systems. Collaborate with the Lead General Practice Pharmacist, other General Practice Pharmacists and the Federation Head of Pharmacy as appropriate in resolving and managing incidents.

Team Working and Development

The post holder will:

• Undertake required post-registration Pharmacist Foundation Programme
• Undertake required Independent Prescribing qualification, if not already achieved
• Participate in personal appraisal processes
• Undertake and keep up to date with relevant mandatory training
• Support and deliver enhanced liaison and closer working with local community pharmacists
• Be aware of and comply with organisational policies including those relating to health and safety
• Work collaboratively with other prescribing support pharmacists within the Board area to assess need, establish priority and monitor standards of practice in relation to prescribing.
• Act as the medicine’s expert within the practice. Work within the multi-disciplinary team to plan, organise and deliver medicines related changes within the practice.
• Plan and manage own time effectively and fulfil work requirements and commitments to a high standard, without compromising own health and wellbeing.

Record Keeping

The post holder will:

• Maintain clinical records in line with practice and regional standards for information governance
• Comply with GP practice and regional standards on data protection, confidentiality, information sharing, safeguarding, consent, mental capacity, duty of care, duty of candour, duty to raise concerns, vicarious liability etc.
• Ensure all public and patient communication about clinical and operational pharmacy services is of the highest professional standard