Pharmacy Technician

We are pleased to offer a Pharmacy Technician role to join our dynamic team in a busy 2 site practice that is committed to excellent patient care.

Pharmacy technicians play an important role to proactively help patients stay safe, well, and out of hospital, as well as helping to reduce the demands on general practice. They complement clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists and other members of the PCN multi‑disciplinary team. Unlike clinical pharmacists, pharmacy technicians do not prescribe or make complex clinical decisions; instead they work under supervision or to an agreed protocol to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines.

Pharmacy technicians’ core responsibilities cover clinical, technical and administrative categories. The purpose of the role is to lead improvements to maximise safe, cost‑effective best practice in prescribing to improve the quality of patient care.

The practice covers a diverse, large area of North Leeds from Harehills to Shadwell, with a patient population of around 21,000. It has two purpose‑built buildings, one in Harehills and the other in Moortown.

We have 5 partners, 8 salaried doctors, 1 pharmacist, 5 practice nurses and 4 healthcare assistants. The clinicians are supported by a management and administration team and a reception team led by two reception supervisors. All staff work across both sites.

Report to: Head of Clinical Pharmacy
Accountable to: GP Board Director – Lead for Pharmacy
Location: Moortown and Harehills surgeries

Job Summary

Pharmacy technicians play an important role to proactively help patients stay safe, well, and out of hospital while reducing the demands on general practice. They complement clinical pharmacists and community pharmacists, working under supervision to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines.

Key responsibilities

Undertake patient‑facing and patient‑supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use through shared decision‑making conversations with patients.

Carry out medicines optimisation tasks, including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), 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 medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care‑home patients, practice patients and patient transfers between care settings, and link with local community pharmacies for repeat synchronisation of existing patients.

Support the Clinical Pharmacist in Structured Medication Reviews (SMR), organising necessary monitoring tests prior to SMR and discussing medicines with patients to ascertain current use.

Provide specialist expertise to address public health and social care needs, including lifestyle advice, service information and help in tackling local health inequalities.

Take a central role in shared care protocols and liaise with appropriate pharmacists for more complex patients.

Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing locally.

Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive schemes and patient safety audits.

Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through audits, supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services and CQC inspection searches.

Work with the PCN multi‑disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation processes, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes and reducing wastage.

Supervise practice reception teams in sorting and streamlining general prescription requests to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review more clinically complex requests.

Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across PCNs, supporting practices with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic…