Job overview

The pharmacy department is recruiting a Community Transformation Lead pharmacist to become part of our friendly, patient centred team based in the Croydon Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs).

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced mental health pharmacist to join our dynamic, innovative team who are dedicated to improving our community services across the Trust, by leading the Croydon community pharmacist team. You will work with the site lead pharmacist for the Bethlem Royal Hospital which provide the dispensing services to Croydon, and also the Trust Community Transformation Pharmacist Team to ensure Trust-wide quality improvement projects and high-quality pharmacy services are implemented, delivered and continually improved for patients in our communities. 

We are looking for someone with experience and a passion for this area of with natural leadership qualities. Your role will involve delivering outcomes for patients with a focus on preventing hospital admissions both for mental and physical ill health, improved medicines management and communication, particularly during transfer of care.

You must have excellent communication skills and be able to influence prescribing and medicines practice at a high level. You must be able to collect, analyse and report on data in a meaningful way to gain co-operation from stakeholders and present your work at Trust meetings in a confident, friendly and enthusiastic manner.

Main duties of the job

As a Community Transformation Lead Pharmacist, you will be working closely with senior and junior prescribers, care co-ordinators and other members of the MDT to ensure safe, effective and cost-effective use of medicines.

You will make recommendations for initiating, changing and stopping medications, including where appropriate, that clozapine and antipsychotic long acting injections are offered early in the treatment journey. You will consult with patients and their carers to ensure they receive expert advice on their medicines and are supported to manage their medicines.

You will work closely with teams, managers, and service directors to implement sustainable processes to ensure positive outcomes for patients and their carers.

We expect you to have a good knowledge of psychotropic medications and the ability to independently make appropriate decisions about treatment options. You should be able to communicate clinical information effectively and be able to influence prescribing practices in your boroughs. We expect that you would manage your own time and work schedule effectively.

Flexible working:

As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage.

Working for our organisation

South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provides the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK.  We are a world leading Trust in research, working closely with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. We are also part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre.

We are a large pharmacy department providing mental health pharmacy services to the Maudsley, Lambeth, Lewisham, and Bethlem Royal Hospitals and to psychiatric liaison, Home Treatment and community teams in the areas we serve in South London. We are the national medicines information centre for psychotropic medicines and have an established clinical trials unit. We provide training for undergraduate, pre-registration and post graduate pharmacists.

Career Progression pathways and development opportunities:

We are committed to get the very best out of our staff and support staff in their career aspirations. We have career pathways available, where you will be able to develop your skills and build on your experience to progress into other roles across different specialties. This role will help you in your development towards advanced clinical practice and consultant pharmacist potential. There are opportunities to become involved in research and quality improvement.