SM) Specialist Pharmacist

NHS Scotland is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce and eliminating unlawful discrimination. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. To this end, NHS Scotland welcomes applications from all sections of society.

NHS Lothian serves a population of approximately 1 million people, employs 35,000 people and is fundamentally focussed on improving the health and wellbeing of the population.

The NHS Lothian Primary Care Pharmacy and Medicines Service is undergoing an ambitious programme of transformation and integration. Pharmaceutical care is provided by a team of around 100 pharmacy staff, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and administrators, working across General Practices covering the whole of Edinburgh.

Partnership working is at the core of our values, and we work closely with other members of the multi-disciplinary team, including our Community Pharmacy colleagues, to deliver the highest quality care for everyone in Lothian.

Do you want to be at the forefront of transforming the delivery of pharmaceutical care? Do you want to work in an environment that values staff and supports their learning, growth and wellbeing? Do you want to work with a dynamic team who have the ambition to be "the best Pharmacy service in Scotland"?

This post will help in supporting delivery of additional pharmacist-led polypharmacy reviews annually across care homes and transitions of care in the City of Edinburgh. Significant indirect savings are expected through reduced hospital admissions, care package requirements, and medicines waste.

Polypharmacy, defined as the concurrent use of five or more medicines, is often appropriate for people with multiple long-term conditions. However, it can increase the risk of adverse drug interactions, complications, and avoidable harm. Inappropriate polypharmacy also places a substantial financial burden on the health service when medicines with little or no clinical benefit continue to be prescribed long term. This challenge is increasing alongside Edinburgh's ageing population.

In order to do achieve this aim you will work within Primary Care, supporting pharmacy teams in GP practices to increase capacity for polypharmacy reviews, while also undertaking reviews for patients on the reablement team caseload.

You are a dynamic, highly motivated and enthusiastic, GPhC registered pharmacist.

You may have a community or hospital pharmacy background or already be working within a GP Practice as a pharmacist. Candidates will have gained postgraduate experience working in a patient focused clinical environment, using their knowledge and skills to improve patient care and promote optimal outcomes from medicines and have progressed through the post registration foundation training (PRFT) to the stage of being signed off as ready to prescribe.

Candidates must have a Master of Pharmacy Degree or equivalent, be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), and should have completed or have equivalent competence mapped to the Post-registration foundation pharmacist curriculum - Royal College of Pharmacy. Evidence of this will be requested prior to interview for candidates who have not had the opportunity to enrol in PRFT or equivalent.

You should have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and demonstrate leadership and innovation consistent with NHS Lothian's values of quality, teamwork, care and compassion, dignity and respect, and openness, honesty and responsibility. You will have experience of involvement in the development and education of others.

The ideal candidate will be able to work autonomously as well as part of a team.

We are creating innovative career pathways to develop clinical leaders.

These posts will give you the opportunity to continue to develop your clinical skills at a range of medical practices across a particular geographical area of Edinburgh, to provide holistic, patient-centred individualised care to improve the safety and effectiveness of individual's medicines. There are also opportunities to become involved in joint projects/initiatives within the HSCP as required in accordance with identified local and national priorities.

If not already completed, there will be opportunities and support for successful applicants to complete the General Practice Clinical Pharmacist Competency & Capability Framework, a post graduate clinical…