Band 3 Medicines Optimisation Pharmacy Assistant - Salisbury

at  Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a significant provider of high quality mental health services across a core catchment area covering Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon and Wiltshire.
The Trust provides services for people with mental health needs, with needs relating to drug or alcohol dependency and mental health services for people with learning disabilities. Increasingly these services are delivered in community settings. Our community services are supported by inpatient units that provide short term assessment, treatment and care.
The AWP pharmacy service supplies medicines and provides clinical support to wards and teams across our core catchment area. We have two dispensaries: Calne (Wiltshire) and at Callington Road Hospital (Bristol).
This is a new and exciting opportunity for a pharmacy assistant to join our developing medicines optimisation team. We provide high quality support to our patients and are looking for a motivated, flexible and forward-thinking pharmacy assistant. This post offers you the opportunity to build on your existing skills, as well as developing new ones in a supportive environment.
Working hours are 9am until 5pm Monday to Friday, with an occasional commitment to the Saturday and bank holiday rotas. Working hours for weekends and bank holidays are 10am-1pm.
This role will be based at ward level at our Fountains Way site in Salisbury, as well as Green Lane in Devizes, delivering a high quality medicines optimisation service. This site covers wards providing a specialist mental health service to patients.
The role will involve working as part of the wider multidisciplinary team consisting of Pharmacy Technicians, Pharmacy Assistants, Pharmacists, Nursing staff, having direct patient contact at ward level and will be involved in contributing to patient care. You will be maintaining stock, ordering patient-specific medicines and undertaking audits which feed into our clinical governance meetings.
We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care. We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset. Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.
At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.
To support Medicines Optimisation services to allocated wards and community teams
To ensure that standard operating procedures (SOPs) are adhered to
Liaising with patients establishing availability of medicines supplies and assessing whether patients’ have further supply of their prescribed medicines at home
Liaison with ward multidisciplinary teams including discharge facilitators to establish prioritisation of workload in relation to discharge planning and preparation for medicines for discharge
Gaining consent from patients to access their Summary Care Record (SCR) and PharmOutcomes
Labelling and dispensing prescriptions at ward level to facilitate a smooth discharge service. Maintaining equipment used in these processes.
Ordering medicines in a timely manner, to avoid missed doses
Assessing patients own drugs (PODs)
Support routine audits at ward level
Assisting the medicines optimisation technicians and clinical pharmacists with any other duties on the wards as necessary
To support training of new staff
Participate in the ward top-up service, ensuring that the wards have adequate stock.
With due respect to storage requirements and stock rotation, putting goods away.
Carrying out expiry date and stock level checks.
Ensuring sufficient emergency medicines and oxygen, as well as assurances of their expiry dates
Undertake ward drug stock reviews to ensure adequate and appropriate stocks are held on wards.
Disposal of returned pharmaceutical items from wards/teams
Carrying out medicines optimisation activities at ward level in order to reduce medication wastage and save money
Liaise with local pharmacies to ensure that continuing supply of medicines are provided at discharge
Maintain safe systems of work at all times, being responsible for the quality and accuracy of all work undertaken
Assisting in quality assurance procedures such as the monitoring of all incidents and critical errors
Understand the procedures required when you encounter potentially hazardous products such as cytotoxic and cytostatic medication
Participate in the weekend and bank holiday services according to departmental rotas
Ensure all mandatory training is kept up to date
Facilitating returns to dispensary from wards and teams
Ensure patients own medicines transfer between wards to reduce wastage/missed doses
Liaise with pharmacy stores to ensure adequate stock supplies
Communicate effectively with the healthcare team and pharmacy services
The postholder may be required to perform duties other than those given in the job description for the post. The particular duties and responsibilities attached to posts may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the duties or the level of responsibilities entailed. Such variations are a common occurrence and would not of themselves justify the re-evaluation of a post. In cases, however, where a permanent and
substantial change in the duties and responsibilities of a post occurs, consistent with a higher level of responsibility, then the post would be eligible for re-evaluatio

Please refer the Job description for details