Pharmacy Technician - St Helens Medical CentreNHS

Job summary

Please note; This vacancy is being advertised by One Wight Health Ltd - GP Federation, on behalf of St Helens GP Surgery

This role will be directly employed by St Helens Medical Centre.

Hours: 30 hours per week

Salary: Depending on experience

Main duties of the job

The Pharmacy Technician will play an important role in supporting our multi-disciplinary team, working under clinical supervision to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines. The role will support the practice and patients to get the best from their medicines, use existing protocols to maximise cost-effective preparations, improve repeat prescribing processes, minimise clinical risk, reduce medicines wastage and assist the practice in achieving local and national medicines-related objectives.

Job description

See supporting document for full job description.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Undertaking patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients.
• Conduct medicines optimisation tasks, including searches to support medication reviews, medicines reconciliation from clinic letters and post hospital discharge medicines reconciliation.
• Effective medicine administration, supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.
• Support prescribers by identifying and referring eligible patients for Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs), including completing any required SMR pre-work.
• Supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, linking with local community pharmacists, and referring to Prescribers for structured medication reviews.
• Providing specialist expertise, where competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities.
• Taking a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients.
• Supporting initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
• Working with the multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes and reducing wastage.
• Providing training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
• Developing relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists, and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and mental health.
• Supervising practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests, to allow GPs and Prescribers to review the more clinically complex requests.
• Processing repeat prescriptions in line with agreed clinical protocols and supporting with the efficient ordering of medicines.
• The role will also require pharmacy technicians to support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g., use of antibiotics), supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services. In addition, pharmacy technicians will assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation incentive schemes (e.g., medicines switches) and patient safety audits.
• Pharmacy technicians will provide leadership for medicines management systems, supporting the practice with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic Prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems, and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines).
• Identify patients that are overdue required monitoring and refer to the appropriate clinicians.
• Ensure shared care protocols are in place where relevant and ensure the continuation of safe practice within primary care is maintained.
• Oversee high-risk medication recall processes, ensuring timely monitoring and compliance.

GENERAL

Maintain registration with GPhC.

About us

We are a progressive and thriving, 2 partner Practice located in a prime coastal part of the Isle of Wight serving an affluent elderly population. Serving a patient list size of approximately 6,700 patients, we operate out of our own, purpose-built, well-equipped premises, with a branch surgery in the neighbouring village of Bembridge.

We seek to progress, develop and maintain high standards in our busy training practice. We are actively engaged in commissioning and innovations to develop our services to meet local population needs and have consistently high QOF and QPSS achievement.