Pharmacy Technician

Job description Job responsibilities Job Scope

Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice is part of an exciting programme of transformation to develop a new model of care which addresses our ambition to deliver person-centred, coordinated care across the district. The Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice model is supported by the direction of national policy including the Five Year Forward View and GP Forward View where there is a need to better utilise the role of pharmacy within primary care to pro-actively help patients stay safe and well and out of hospital as well as helping to reduce the demands on general practice.

Pharmacy technicians play an important role, complementing clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists and other members of the PCN multi- disciplinary team. The post holder is a Pharmacy Technician who acts autonomously within their professional boundaries, with appropriate clinical supervision and support where required. The post holder will provide expert pharmaceutical technical support to support medicines optimisation work programme. They will carry out medicines optimisation tasks, including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation, using their professional judgement and working autonomously within their scope of practice, with access to clinical supervision as required.

The purpose of the role is to lead improvements to maximise safe, cost-effective best practice in prescribing to improve the quality of patient care. The post holder will undertake clinical audits across the Primary Care Network (PCN), analyse and evaluate the findings, and share reports with GP practices to highlight progress, identify areas for improvement, and support the implementation of appropriate actions. The post holder will help patients to get the best from their medicines by switching medications to agreed and approved protocols, improving repeat prescribing processes in General Practice, including promotion of repeat dispensing and online ordering, minimising clinical risk and aiming to reduce wasted medicines.

In addition, the post holder will be responsible for encouraging the development of better understanding of the principles of medicines optimisation throughout the practice teams and promoting good practice in line with therapeutic developments. This will involve assisting the PCN in achieving national requirements, NICE implementation and utilisation of medicines optimisation initiatives.

Key duties and responsibilities

Clinical

Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles 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, acting autonomously within professional boundaries with appropriate clinical supervision and support where required.

Utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.

Undertake clinical audits across the Primary Care Network (PCN), analyse and evaluate the findings, and share reports with GP practices

As determined by the PCN, support medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, linking with local community pharmacies

Support the Clinical Pharmacist in Structured Medication Reviews (SMR)

Provide expertise to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities.

Manage shared care protocols and liaise with Clinical Pharmacists for more complex patients.

Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing locally.

Technical and Administrative

Support the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation processes are being followed.

Implement efficient ordering and return processes and reducing medication wastage.

Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).

Promotion of Electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) and online ordering

Develop relationships with other pharmacy professionals and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and mental health.

Support practice reception teams in streaming general prescription requests, so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests.

Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings.

Support the PCN to deliver on QIPP agenda, QOF and locally commissioned enhanced services

Supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services;

Support the PCN in reviewing and developing practice policies for CQC requirements.

Undertake monitoring searches including CQC performance and safety searches in line with the needs of the practices or PCN

Undertake duties as per agreed job plan.

General

The Post Holder will:

Develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity. The postholder must be aware of and committed to the Equality and Diversity policies of the appointing GP Practice and PCN and comply with all the requirements of these policies and actively promote Equality and Diversity issues relevant to the post.

Ensure the principles of openness, transparency and candour are observed and upheld in all working practices.

The post holder will have, or acquire through training provided by the organisation, the appropriate level of safeguarding and knowledge, skills and practice required for the post

and be aware of and comply with the organisations safeguarding protection policies and procedures.

Ensure that any infection prevention and control issues are reported to the line manager/Infection Prevention and Control

Equality & Diversity

The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:

Acting in a way that recognises the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with practice procedures and policies, and current legislation

Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues

Behaving in a manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non- judgmental and respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights.

Personal/Professional Development

The post-holder will participate in any training programme implemented by the practice as part of this employment, with such training to include:

Participation in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development

Taking responsibility for own development, learning and performance and demonstrating skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar work

Quality

The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the practice, and will:

Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk

Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision

Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the teams performance

Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs

Effectively manage own time, workload and resources

Supervision

The postholder will have access to appropriate clinical supervision and an appropriate named individual in the PCN to provide general advice and support on a day to day basis.

Job Description Agreement

This job description is intended to provide an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities only. There may be other duties required of the post-holder commensurate with the position. This description will be open to regular review and may be amended to take into account development within the PCN/Practice. All members of staff should be prepared to take on additional duties or relinquish existing duties in order to maintain the efficient running of the PCN/Practice.