Principal Pharmacist: Medication Safety and Governance

Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Closing date: 15 March 2026.

Band: 8a,
Salary: £55,690 to £62,682 per annum, pro rata.
Hours: Full time, 37.5 per week plus on‑call. Flexible working is available.

We are looking for an experienced and passionate pharmacist to play a key role in medication safety and governance at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This senior role is central to ensuring the safe, effective and high‑quality use of medicines across the organisation.

The successful post‑holder will lead the Trust's medication safety and governance agenda, ensuring robust systems for incident reporting, learning and assurance. The role includes leading investigations into medication‑related incidents, supporting compliance with national safety alerts and CQC requirements, and providing expert advice on medicines governance. You will work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams, influence senior clinicians and managers, and support quality improvement, audit and service development.

The post also includes professional leadership, staff development responsibilities and a defined clinical pharmacy commitment within an agreed scope of practice.

The Principal Pharmacist for Medication Safety and Governance provides senior professional leadership to ensure the safe, effective and high‑quality use of medicines across the Trust. The post holder will lead on medication safety systems, incident reporting, investigation and learning, and support Trust‑wide patient safety and governance processes. They will provide expert advice on medicines governance, support compliance with national standards and regulatory requirements, and contribute to Trust committees and quality improvement programmes.

The role includes leadership of Controlled Drugs governance, development and assurance of medicines policies, SOPs and guidelines, representation at local, regional and national networks, and an advanced clinical pharmacy commitment including ward‑based practice and on‑call services.

• B.Pharm / M.Pharm
• Registered with GPhC
• Post‑graduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy or equivalent experience
• Evidence of ongoing CPD (in line with GPhC requirements)
• Good understanding of medicines safety
• Formal teaching or mentoring training
• Member of RPS

• Passion for medication safety & governance
• Significant post‑registration experience in a hospital
• Experience working as part of a multi‑disciplinary team to provide patient care
• Experience of managing drug expenditure and understanding of budgetary mechanisms
• Experience of audit work and research
• Supporting multidisciplinary teams through change in clinical settings
• Service development or change management experience
• Awareness of current national standards, guidelines and delivery issues relevant to patient and medication safety
• Experience supervising, developing, and appraising staff and giving feedback
• Experience writing policy, guidelines, SOPs, PGDs/PSDs/MAPs
• Experience evaluating or reviewing medicines and critically appraising evidence
• Awareness of tools and techniques to support horizon scanning
• Providing Medicines Information and Pharmacy Advice Service to patients and HCPs

• IT, presentation skills and report writing
• Met targets and identifies vision for delivery of pharmacy and medicine services
• Good interpersonal skills, ability to liaise and influence senior managers and consultants
• Meet expected levels of practice and identifies new areas of practice
• Understands local and national priorities and reconciles them with local realities
• Demonstrable ability to manage time, people and resources to deliver outcomes
• Integrates research evidence and audit results into practice, documented experience of own research & audit
• Identifies and manages risk
• Demonstrates awareness of and commitment to governance and medicines safety agendas
• Demonstrates clinical knowledge, clinical reasoning and judgement; manages difficult and ambiguous problems
• Identifies own training needs, seeks training opportunities, maintains…