Consultant Pharmacist - Haematology and ATMPsNHS

Job summary

The Christie is one of Europe's leading cancer centres with an international reputation for delivering excellence in cancer care, research, education and innovation. We are seeking an exceptional and visionary pharmacist to join our Haematology team as a Consultant Pharmacist - Haematology.

This newly credentialled senior leadership role offers a unique opportunity to transform the future of pharmaceutical care for patients with haematological malignancies leading and supporting innovation in systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT), and other novel therapies within the rapidly growing ATMP treatment landscape.

Working as an integral member of the multidisciplinary team, the successful candidate will provide expert clinical leadership, advanced patient care, strategic service development and professional influence across haematology disease group services at the Trust and across the network. The post holder will deliver their own research and contribute to the wider research agenda.

We welcome applications from pharmacists who have commenced, but not yet completed, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Consultant pharmacist credentialling process and who can demonstrate substantial progress towards approval may be considered for an interim developmental appointment, pending completion of RPS credentialling.

If you are ready to take on a high-impact leadership role, advance haematology pharmacy practice and make a lasting difference to patients, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will provide strategic leadership for a high-quality professional clinical pharmacy team supporting haematology services, optimising access to medicines and improving the overall patient experience. The post holder will work in collaboration with the haematology disease group, the Trust's network services division, multidisciplinary clinical and researcher colleagues, and the Trust's designated commercial and outsourced service providers to develop and deliver an efficient, high quality, professional and well-coordinated service capable of meeting patients' clinical needs and all statutory, regulatory and NHS commissioning requirements relating to haematology services including services to other disease groups in respect of ATMPs only. The postholder will support service delivery for haematology patients across the Trust network including satellite sites and neighbourhood initiatives.

This will include provision of direct patient care to patients, as a non-medical prescriber with their own clinic caseload in addition to being responsible for the governance oversight of the Trust's Intrathecal Chemotherapy Policy and register.

Although the pharmacy service is based at The Christie Hospital main the postholder may be required to work at any location across the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Network. The Trust has a flexible working policy and, subject to service commitments, it may also be possible to support an element of working from home.

Job description

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The post is primarily structured around four main functions:

Expert Professional Practice Leadership and Management Education, Training and mentoring Research, Evaluation and Service Development

Expert Professional Practice

To be recognised as the pharmacy professional lead and expert clinical practitioner in support of the haematology disease group and the Trusts ATMP portfolio across all disease groups.

Lead expert pharmacy support including the development of trust policy, protocols and SOPs relating to haematology and ATMPs.

To be responsible for governance oversight of the Trusts Intrathecal Chemotherapy Policy and register.

To appropriately manage difficult and ambiguous problems, managing uncertainty, and to make decisions with limited information.

Responsible for the clinical pharmacy management of a caseload of patients in the haematology disease group under the clinical supervision of the lead consultant haematologist.

Fulfil the role of Consultant Pharmacist, providing leadership for the pharmaceutical aspects of SACT, including ATMPs, across in the Trust. Provide information and advice on therapeutic and cost-effectiveness measures and guide doctors and other prescribers in the composition of appropriate drug treatments for individual patients in accordance with guidance from NICE, Trust Policy and other guidelines.

Leadership and Management.

To be recognised as an expert in haematology and ATMP clinical pharmacy, locally and nationally and/or internationally, demonstrating active participation in creating national healthcare policies and providing clinical and professional leadership in accordance with local strategy, priorities and objectives.

To identify and promote best practice, motivating and inspiring others to excel in clinical service delivery

To work with local and national commissioners and stakeholders in investigating innovative treatment pathways, setting goals in line with local and national strategy and standards, identifying and managing the risks involved and working with colleagues to extend boundaries across professions and convincing others to share the vision at a higher level.

Develop strong working relationships and communication with clinical and managerial staff across the Greater Manchester Integrated Care System and wider Cancer Alliance and provide a link regarding all aspects of the Pharmacy Service across the local health economy.

To ensure that information relating relating to haematology SACT and ATMPs for other relevant disease group issues are communicated to all pharmacy staff as appropriate

To work collaboratively with all pharmacy staff and management, to ensure implementation of local and nationally agreed pharmacy service objectives

To ensure that clinical and operational policies are kept up to date with legal and professional developments

To set standards, operational guidelines and safe systems of work. To monitor the compliance with these and ensure action is taken in the event of failure or incidents. This will include responsibility for pharmacy leadership for the Trusts Joint Accreditation Committee of the International Society for Cellular Therapy (JACIE) accreditation for haematopoietic stem cell transplantation and other cellular therapies, supporting the haematology disease group, other disease groups where necessary and the Trusts partnership with Health Care America supporting relevant private patients.

To lead innovation and work actively to continuously improve services

To develop, implement and review the departmental strategy in support of pharmacy and the haematology disease group

To ensure strategic input and implementation of clinical trials where appropriate to the disease group.

Education, Training and Mentoring

To contribute to national pharmacy workforce strategy and support implementation across the local Cancer Network

To be involved in the development and/or delivery of higher education qualifications, thereby contributing to national education policy.

Work with Higher Education institutes or specialist training associations to further develop undergraduate and postgraduate level education to ensure clinical pharmacy practitioners are both competent and confident.

Identify pharmaceutical training needs of other healthcare practitioners and contribute to the training of healthcare professionals across the Trust.

Responsible for the provision of specialist teaching and the delivery of core training to nurses, pharmacists, doctors and other healthcare staff. In particular, ensure that medical staff understand and can apply the relevant SACT prescribing guidelines and know where to obtain further advice in relation to their prescribing.

Tutor and mentor clinical pharmacists undertaking postgraduate qualifications and pre-registration foundation year pharmacists

Design, deliver and evaluate appropriate education and training for other pharmacy staff and healthcare professionals.

To identify own training needs and undertake further professional and management training as deemed appropriate as to achieve objectives agreed at performance reviews.

Research, Evaluation and Service development

To contribute to monitoring safe, effective and economical use of medicines following national and local guidelines, working with appropriate colleagues.

To contribute to the Trusts Risk and Quality Governance agenda, including investigation of pharmacy services and medication-related incidents and other aspects of medicines safety.

To lead on and participate in clinical audits, quality improvement projects and development and implementation of treatment protocols and guidelines for the use of SACT across the local cancer network, using quality improvement skills and methodology where required and linked with local/regional QI groups/bodies. This will include making recommendations to primary care for ongoing preventative treatments to appropriately consider how they are integrated within prescribing systems across primary, secondary and tertiary care interfaces.

To provide advice and support to other professionals undertaking pharmacy practice research within the Trust and in the National Arena.

To design, plan, organise, participate in and supervise multidisciplinary and pharmacy led audit/research, supporting the development of clinical pharmacy practice and clinical pharmacy practitioners

Statutory Professional Responsibilities

To practice within the professional boundaries described by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

To undertake annual professional revalidation comprising; continuing professional development (CPD) entries, reflective account and peer discussion.

To follow all relevant legal, ethical, professional and employer codes of conduct.

Communication and Working relationships

To develop positive working relationships with all NHS staff in all areas of work to ensure the safe and effective use of medicines and resolution of identified pharmaceutical care issues.

To collaborate and share learning with pharmacy services colleagues in the wider healthcare system, regionally and nationally as part of established specialist pharmacy networks.

The postholder will be based at The Christie Hospital main site but work within a hub and spoke model across the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Network.

To promote and participate in team working across the Pharmacy service

HR, management and organisational tasks

Accountable for the leadership and clinical supervision of the haematology disease group clinical pharmacists and medicines management technicians in accordance with the appropriate Trust HR policies, directly line-managing the 8B principal pharmacist

To continually review skill mix to meet service needs and professional standards in force at the time, and implementing change management to new requirements.

To develop and motivate staff; ensure annual personal development review planning, delivery and objective setting

To ensure regular individual and team meetings for relevant pharmacy staff.To support the Director of Pharmacy and other senior pharmacy managers in the delivery of performance standards.

Risk and Governance

Responsible for developing of strategies for risk assessing and mitigation strategies working with colleagues in pharmacy and other departments

To ensure all staff, including self, handle medicines and any other toxic substances in the correct and safe manner following Trust protocols and national legislation.

To ensure that complaints and adverse incident reports are investigated and are used as lessons for learning, with trends monitored and analysed as appropriate

Responsibility for financial resources

To support budgetary control for relevant pharmacy cost centres, including the delivery of Trust Value Improvement Programme savings and efficiency schemes

To ensure that pharmacy clinical service finances are managed in accordance with Trust Standing Financial Instruction.

To lead horizon scanning, budgetary prescribing trends, best value medication, medicines expenditure forecasting and to identify or any changes in prescribing practices that may potentially impact on the medicines budget (for the haematology disease group and ATMPs Trust-wide).

About us

The Christie is one of Europe's leading cancer centres, looking after more than 64,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 25% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

We are the largest radiotherapy provider in the NHS with one in 20 treatments delivered at The Christie. We have up to 15 linear accelerators operating across our network of sites. We operate the largest chemotherapy unit in the UK on our main site and treatments are also provided at 13 other networked sites, and in patients homes. And as a specialist tertiary surgical centre, we focus on rare cancers, complex procedures, and multidisciplinary approaches to cancer surgery, specialising in colorectal, peritoneal, gynaecological, urological and plastic surgery.

We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We have been named by the UK's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), as one of the best hospitals providing opportunities for patients to participate in clinical research studies, with more than 800 studies open at any time, caring for over 3,000 patients.