Prescribing Clinical Pharmacist

Primary key responsibilities A prescribing clinical pharmacist at Network North PCN has the following key responsibilities in relation to delivering health services. There may be, on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks; this will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels.

• a. Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using their expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas.
• b. Be a prescriber and work with and alongside the PCN and general practice team
• c. Work with the 5 Practices across the PCN as and where needed
• d. Be responsible for the care management of patients with chronic diseases and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially the elderly, people in care homes, those with multiple co- morbidities (in particular frailty, COPD and asthma) and people with learning disabilities or autism (through STOMP Stop Over Medication Programme)
• e. Provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients at the organisation and to help in tackling inequalities. Compared to a Clinical Pharmacist role, they must have a greater range of clinical skills relating to competences
• f. Provide leadership on person-centered medicines optimisation (including ensuring prescribers in the PCN practices conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework, enhanced services/local enhanced services, Impact and Investment Fund requirements and also any local PQIS schemes, QIPP and other quality or cost effectiveness initiatives
• g. Through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care
• h. Have a role in supporting further integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage general practice workload
• i. Develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across the wider health and social care system
• j. Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols, clinical research with medicines, liaison with specialist pharmacists (including mental health and reduction of inappropriate antipsychotic use in people with learning difficulties), liaison with community pharmacists, and anticoagulation
• k. Be part of a professional clinical network and have access to appropriate clinical supervision.
• l. To act as the point of contact for all medicine related matters, establishing positive working relationships
• m. To consult patients within defined levels of competence and independently prescribe acute and repeat medication
• n. To receive referrals and directed patients from triage services and other clinicians
• o. To receive and resolve medicines queries from patients and other staff
• p. To provide medication review services for patients in the practices and during domiciliary visits to local nursing homes
• q. To manage a caseload of complex patients
• r. To manage a therapeutic drug monitoring system and the recall of patients taking high risk drugs, i.e., anticoagulants, anticonvulsants and DMARDs, etc.
• s. To deliver long term condition clinics and home visits, particularly for patients with complicated medication regimes, and prescribe accordingly
• t. To provide pharmaceutical consultations to patients with long term conditions as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team
• u. To review medications for newly registered patients
• v. To improve patient and carer understanding of confidence in and compliance with their medication
• w. To maintain accurate clinical records in conjunction with extant legislation
• x. To encourage cost-effective prescribing throughout the PCN
• y. To implement and embed a robust repeat prescribing system
• z. To provide advice and answer medication related queries from patients and staff
• aa. To organise and oversee the PCNs medicines optimisation systems, including the repeat prescribing and medication review systems
• bb. To improve the quality and effectiveness of prescribing through clinical audit and education, to improve performance against NICE standards and clinical and prescribing guidance.
• cc. To develop yourself and the role through participation in clinical supervision, training and service redesign activities
• dd. To ensure appropriate supervision of safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs. To apply infection-control measures within the PCN practices according to local and national guidelines
• ee. To provide subject matter expertise on medication monitoring, implementing and embedding a robust system
• ff. Share expertise with the various students across the Practices and have students shadow…