Job summary
Employer heading
Lead Pharmacist - Medicine
Band 8a
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust is one of the top performing organisations within the NHS. Our staff think this is a great place to work and we hope you will agree. We have recently been rated as 'Outstanding' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following our most recent inspection.
We provide services across Warwickshire and beyond ranging from Hospitals in Warwick, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Royal Leamington Spa and Shipston-on Stour to Community Services across the whole county. This includes our Community Teams in North Warwickshire.
We are a progressive, expanding organisation with great ambition around improving quality, integrating pathways and delivering high levels of productivity. Over 6000 people work for the Trust and many of them have been here a long time. People find they don’t need to go elsewhere to find a fulfilling career in healthcare.
The first thing you will notice about us is how we take our values seriously. We believe that our values underpin everything we do. If you are interested in a role with us you need to make sure our values match your own.
Our values can be summed up in one sentence. We are ‘Trusted to provide inclusive, safe, effective and compassionate care’. Throughout the recruitment process you will be asked to think about how you demonstrate these values and how they impact on your work. It doesn’t matter what role you do, whether it is patient facing or not, we are all working in the same way with our values at the core.
Probationary Period
All new staff to the Trust will be subject to a standard 6 month probationary period, the details of which will duly follow in your contract of employment.
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust is committed to creating and sustaining a positive and inclusive working environment for all our employees. Our aim is to ensure that employees are equally valued and respected and that our organisation is representative of all members of society. We define diversity as valuing everyone as an individual – we value our employees, job applicants, students, patients and visitors as people. This is reflected within our values of being Inclusive, Safe, Effective, Compassionate and Trusted.
Agile and Flexible Working
All our staff will have a work base. However the Trust operates as an Agile Working Team therefore staff may be working from home on a regular basis as required by the service. However, occasionally travel around Warwickshire and into your base will be required so access to your own transport would be helpful.
The Trust also welcome staff to work flexibly and we would welcome the conversation at interview regarding flexible working.
Staff Benefits
The Trust offer a wide range of additional benefits to staff. Anyone who joins us on a substantive basis can assess things such as the Lease Car Scheme, Electronics Scheme, Discounted Leisure and Travel, Cycle to work scheme amongst many others available.
Car Parking
The Trust have recently completed the construction of a multi-storey car park at our Warwick Hospital site which has allowed us to reduce waiting times for car parking passes.
To keep up to date on our latest recruitment activity follow us on twitter @swftrecruit or look us up on Facebook (Recruitment - South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust).
Job overview
Lead Pharmacist – Medicine
Fixed Term 12 months.
Full-time or Part-time will be considered
Are you an enthusiastic, self-motivated pharmacist interested in a new challenge? Well, this fixed term Lead Pharmacist in medicine might be the opportunity for you!!
The post holder will oversee medical specialities example included, cardiology, respiratory, endocrinology, gastro and frailty.
We have a fantastic opportunity to join the pharmacy team at South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust for proactive pharmacist who would like to develop their leadership and director skills. The post holder will be responsible for the medicine directorate and education and training of all junior pharmacist within the medicine rotations.
The successful candidate will work alongside a multidisciplinary clinical team to help achieve national, trust-wide and pharmacy digital strategies within this specialist areas.
We offer our pharmacist education and leadership opportunities. In addition, as a department committed to supporting staff development all our staff are provided dedicated personal learning time to support their learning.
You will need to have excellent communication, organisation and time management skills. We are a friendly, supportive and innovative team who are passionate developing services with surgery team.
Post holder will be part of the bank holiday, weekend and on-call rota
Main duties of the job
The post holders’ main base will be the Pharmacy Department of Warwick
Hospital, the main base of the South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust
(SWFT)
Postholder will lead pharmacy for medicine specialities which includes;
Respiratory, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Frailty, Dermatology and Rheumatology (this isn’t exclusive list of specialities)
To work with the lead pharmacist for medicine to lead, develop and support
and deliver a high level of pharmaceutical service to all specialities in
medicine.
Work collaboratively with provider counterparts in the Coventry and
Warwickshire locality and further afield with West Midlands Region.
Working for our organisation
Come and join a Trust rated Outstanding by the CQC. South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust have been rated as outstanding following our latest inspection by the CQC and we are recruiting new staff to come and help us improve even further. In addition our staff survey results have placed us 4th in the country for recommended place to work.
We provide services across Warwickshire and beyond ranging from Hospitals in Warwick, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Royal Leamington Spa and Shipston-on Stour to Community Services across the county. We are a progressive, expanding organisation with great ambition around improving quality, integrating pathways and delivering high levels of productivity.
Our values can be summed up in one sentence. We are ‘Trusted to provide safe, inclusive, effective and compassionate care’. Throughout the recruitment process you will be asked to think about how you demonstrate these values and how they impact on your work. It doesn’t matter what role you do, whether it is patient facing or not, we are all working in the same way with our values at the core.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To provide specialist clinical pharmacy support to a specialities on complex pharmaceutical
Key Relationships:
• Head of Pharmacy
• Deputy Head of pharmacy and Medicine Safety Officer
• Principal Clinical Service Manager
• Service leads and Modern Matron for The medical specialities to meet the needs of the service, Consultant medical staff and their teams.
• Senior nursing staff.
• Clinical pharmacists.
• Senior technicians.
• Ward technicians for the specialty areas served.
• Royal Pharmaceutical Society of GB – Pre-Reg. Training.
Other senior healthcare professionals
CRITICAL ACTIVITIES:
Clinical Pharmacy
The post-holder will be part of a team providing a clinical pharmacy service to the Trust and will be responsible for: -
Medicine Specialities
• To work with medical specialities to develop new strategies for providing pharmaceutical care in the trust.
• Providing an excellent standard of Clinical Pharmacy service to a speciality on the wards, virtual wards, community and outpatient
• To provide a high level of pharmaceutical support, advice and information, to medical, nursing and other healthcare staff providing clinical care in the specialties.
• To support the Lead Antimicrobial Pharmacist with antimicrobial stewardship
General Clinical Service
• To liaise with hospital colleagues and contribute to the provision of clinical pharmacy services at SWFT
• To contribute to directorate work for all medical specialities
• To advise on / recommend / adapt clinical treatment guidelines that have been produced locally or by national bodies e.g. NICE, NSFs, National Prescribing Centre, for use in the specialty area
• To be a lead pharmacist in advising the Principal Pharmacist, and the Head of Pharmacy, on the strategic development of clinical pharmacy services to the designated specialist services.
• Work with the ward based and dispensary pharmacy teams in the development of and maintenance of the Trust’s pharmacy services.
• To ensure that safe systems of handling medicines are in place and that national guidelines and local protocols relating to medicines management are adhered to.
• To advise medical, nursing, other professional staff, managers and patients on any aspect of drug therapy or drug control as required or when considered necessary.
• To maintain an awareness of current developments in pharmacy practice pertinent to the services, by liaising with relevant bodies, outside agencies, special interest groups and other pharmacists. To inform and advise senior pharmacy staff as appropriate.
Governance
• To work directly with the medicine Safety officer and principle pharmacist in addressing the pharmacy and medicines management governance agenda within the Trust relevant to their designated specialty
• To represent Pharmacy on the Audit and Operational Governance group of the relevant division, in the postholder’s own right, or as alternate.
• To undertake the reporting of medication incidents when necessary, according to the Trust’s Incident Reporting Policy, to assist other pharmacists in reporting, to investigate medication incidents as necessary, to provide senior pharmacist input to incident report forms and root cause analyses, and to recommend improvements and implement agreed actions.
• As a registered practising Pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council, the post-holder must undertake Continuing Professional Development CPD and meet the mandatory requirements.
Operational Pharmacy
• To contribute to duties as a clinical pharmacist to other wards in the Trust when necessary.
• Supporting the assessment of medicines management competencies.
• To deputize for senior pharmacy managers as required.
• To liaise with the Senior Pharmacists for the allocation of staff, notably to negotiate staffing resource to provide cover of the specialist services in the postholder’s absence.
• To participate in the provision of the total pharmaceutical service, including a contribution to dispensary rotas on weekdays, late duties, and public holidays. The department provides a 7 day pharmacy service and the post holder will be expected to work weekends on a regular basis
• To participate in oncall service depending on service needs
• To undertake routine duties within the dispensary as required, including supervising the work of junior pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and (senior) ATOs.
• To assure the standards of pharmaceutical care provided to patients on designated wards, ensuring that a satisfactory level of pharmacy service is provided within the resources available.
Education and Training
• The post holder will support the pharmacy department’s aspirations in achieving and maintaining the highest possible standards of clinical pharmacy excellence.
• If agreed, to act as a Pre-Registration Pharmacist tutor, or as a clinical coordinator for a post-graduate diploma student.
• To provide clinical education and training to medical, nursing and pharmacy staff, both undergraduate and postgraduate, including tutoring and mentoring.
• To supervise, contribute to and undertake research and audit projects in the specialty areas, particularly those concerned with the clinical and cost effective use of drugs, compliance with safer prescribing and drug administration policies, procedures and guidelines, and implementation of pharmacy service developments. To provide reports and present the audit findings within the Trust or to outside organizations or regional or national meetings where appropriate. Notably this will include point prevalence studies of antimicrobials use and of adherence to antibiotics guidelines for
the locality, and the benchmarking of antimicrobials use against other Trusts and localities.
• To support the Education and Training Lead Pharmacist to develop and maintain a training Programme for clinical pharmacists allocated to the specialty, and to develop and administer a competency assessment process to ensure the appropriate standards are achieved. To provide clinical pharmacy training for undergraduate pharmacy students, post-grad. diploma students, vacation students, pre-registration pharmacists (hospital and community-based) and hospital clinical pharmacists.
Research
• The post holder may undertake practice research and will support research and audit by students and others within the department
Managerial Responsibilities
• To provide short-term cover for colleagues during periods of leave.
• To ensure that all Trust standards are maintained and monitored to improve the quality of care to all whom come into contact with services provided by South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust.
• Every employee has a duty to take reasonable care of the health and safety of him/her and of other persons who may be affected by his/her acts or omissions at work, and to co-operate with the South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust to ensure that statutory and Trust regulations are complied with.
• To participate in appraisals and personal reviews and work to achieve agreed set objectives.
• To participate in appropriate training and development activities
• To participate in team, professional and personal development activities and promote commitment to continuous development and improvement.
• Ensure that all staff consciously review mistakes, complaints and incidents/near misses as well as successes to improve performance and the level of customer care.
• All employees will have an organizational and individual responsibility towards safeguarding vulnerable adults, young people and children. Where employees are working with children, young people and families they have a responsibility to cooperate in national safeguarding policy around early intervention activities appropriate to improving health outcomes.
• As a major provider of health care, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust operate a Smoke Free Policy by providing a totally smoke free environment to help aid patients’ recovery, promote health and wellbeing and minimize the risks of complications attributed to smoking tobacco and second hand smoke.
• To abide by Infection Prevention and Control policies relevant to their area of work, and undertake the necessary level of training. This will be appraised through the KSF review process or other relevant professional review process.
• To accept responsibility for the provision of effective infection prevention and control within the Trust in liaison with the Trust's Infection Control Team.
• To act as a role model in applying good infection control practice and ensures compliance with all Infection Control policies.
• To promote and demonstrate implementation of the Trust's Carbon Management strategy and policy, ensuring team members are fully aware of the policy and are contributing to this.
General Responsibilities
• At all times to comply with all policies of the Pharmacy Department and of the Trust to ensure the maintenance of professional standards and compliance with legal requirements.
• At all times to maintain safe standards of work and a safe and appropriate environment as required by the provisions of the Medicines Act, the Health and Safety at Work Act, COSHH and waste disposal regulations. Any other requirements as may from time to time be placed upon the department including those of the MHRA.
• To carry out any task appropriate to the post-holder’s training, experience and expertise, as may be required by the Head of Pharmacy
• The following responsibilities relate to general support of the Head of Pharmacy, the Pharmacy department and the Trust. They are not responsibilities specific to the post-holder but areas in which, as a member of the department, the post-holder will be expected to make an input.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Master’s degree in pharmacy (or equiv.)
- Completion of a one-year preregistration programme
- Current UK professional registration as a Pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council
- Postgraduate Clinical Pharmacy diploma or equivalent advanced experience.
- Specialist qualification or accreditation, or equivalent advanced practice, gained or in progress in a relevant clinical specialty
Experience
Essential criteria
- A sufficient breadth and depth of postregistration hospital Pharmacist practice, to acquire the competencies needed for the job
- Lectures, talks, training given (Medical/Nursing/Pharmacy staff and patients).
- Recent clinical Pharmacy experience of medication reviews in acutely ill patients
- Experience of development in a service area of pharmacy.
- Staff mentorship and supervisory management
Desirable criteria
- Undertaken audit work
- Planning and implementing change
Skills
Essential criteria
- Good understanding of recent NHS and pharmacy reports and how they relate to Infection Prevention and Control, and the use of Antimicrobials
- Ability to demonstrate a very high level of specialist knowledge
- Ability to advise and influence all grades of medical and nursing staff on therapeutic aspects of patient care
- An understanding of the relevance of clinical governance and risk management
- Knowledge of drug expenditure/drug budget/clinical activity issues
- Able to understand clinical research data.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Able to clearly communicate highly complex clinical information to all grades of medical, nursing and pharmacy staff.
- Able to question patients sensitively on their drug treatment and to communicate clearly with them
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Good presentation skills.
- Able to create a rapport with panel.
- Ability to prioritise own work and assist others to do so.
- Able to use initiative and work without supervision.
- Understanding of budgetary mechanisms, funding processes.
- Ability to manage junior pharmacy team members.
- Able to give credible representation of pharmacy at senior medical and management levels.
- Effective work in teams – pharmacy teams and multidisciplinary teams.
- Sound judgement on clinical, pharmaceutical and ethical issues
- Able to advise other pharmacists of all grades in the postholder's expert area of knowledge.
- Assertiveness skills - able to negotiate to a satisfactory outcome with professional colleagues at all levels
- Able to deal with concerned/anxious patients or relatives particularly in relation to their drug treatment.
- Able to meet deadlines. high standards of work presentation
Personal Qualities
Essential criteria
- Professional appearance.
- A positive “can do”, enthusiastic approach to work.
- Self-motivating and able to motivate a pharmacy team
- Wants to “make a difference”. Sees the potential of the post.
Other
Essential criteria
- Prepared to share in regular clinical pharmacy and dispensary duties.
- Accurate work
- Able to undertake weekend, Bank Holiday and Statutory Day working on a rota
- Ability to use VDUs.
- Able to demonstrate a satisfactory level of continuing professional development. • Satisfactory computer keyboard skills.
- Competent in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Microsoft Outlook
Desirable criteria
- Use of own vehicle and insured for business use.
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Joanne Hughes
- Job title
- Principal Pharmacist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01926495321
- Additional information
01926495321 ext 4149
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