Care Home Pharmacist - Independent Prescriber

at  Kearsley Medical Centre

Key duties and responsibilities 1. Clinical assessments and Care Home MDT Managing patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence. Referring to the PCN Care Home GP Lead or other healthcare professionals where appropriate. Engaging in a weekly MDT meeting, escalating any patients as necessary within an appropriate time frame.
2. Patient facing Long-term condition consultations See, where appropriate, patients residing in Care Homes with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required e.g. Respiratory, Cardiovascular and Diabetes. Review the on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines i.e.
medicines optimisation. Make appropriate recommendations to GPs for medicine improvement. 3. Patient facing Care Home Medication Reviews Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring.
Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration. 4. Risk stratification Identification of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared practice computer searches. This might include risks that are patient related, medicine related, or both.
5. Unplanned hospital admissions Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews. Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups. 6.
Telephone/email medicines support Provide telephone or email support for care home staff with questions, queries and concerns about residents medicines. 7. Management of medicines at discharge from hospital To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into Care Homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with care homes and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge. Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patients e.g.
those with medicine compliance aids 8. Medicine information to practice and care home staff Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other network staff, other healthcare teams e.g. community pharmacy and care home staff with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions.
Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes. 9. Signposting Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology results, common or minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.
10. Repeat prescribing Ensure an efficient repeat prescribing policy for Care Home patients is in place and adhered to. Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
11. Service development Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components e.g. advice on treatment pathways and patient information leaflets. 12.
Information management Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making. 13. Medicines quality improvement Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the relevant practice team. 14.
Medicines safety Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance. 15. Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economys RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors i.e. red drugs or subject to shared care.
Assist practices in seeing and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on each practices computer system. Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages. 16.
Education and Training Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation. 17. Care Quality Commission Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved. 18.
Public health To support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public. 19. Collaborative working arrangements Participates in the PCN Care Home MDT.
Liaises with ICB colleagues including ICB pharmacists on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit. Liaises with colleagues including ICB Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit Liaises with colleagues including ICB Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Heads of Medicines Management and Optimisation to benefit from peer support. Foster and maintain strong links with all services across the PCN and neighbouring networks. Explores the potential for collaborative working and takes opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships.
Liaises with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients Including but not limited to 1. Patients and their representatives 2. GP, nurses and other practice staff 3. Social prescribers, first contact physiotherapists and paramedics.
4. Community pharmacists and support staff 5. Other members of the medicines management team including pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Dieticians 6. Locality or GP prescribing lead 7.
Locality managers 8. Community nurses and other allied health professionals 9. Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimisation 20. Participation in meetings Participate and engage in monthly pharmacy team meeting to discuss workload, highlight any issues, adapt any learning from team members or Prescribing Lead, identify, plan and update any targets, and any other role relevant meetings as needed.
21. IIF Work towards any Pharmacy related IIF targets. Work with team members and Prescribing Lead to develop and implement plans to achieve IIF targets and update PCN accordingly. Professional development Work with your line manager to undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the role and responsibilities.
Adhere to organisational policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, and health and safety. Work with your line manager to access regular clinical supervision, to enable you to deal effectively with the difficult issues that people present. Review yearly progress and develop clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others. Participate in the delivery of formal education programmes.
Demonstrate an understanding of current educational policies relevant to working areas of practice and keep up to date with relevant clinical practice. Research and Evaluation Critically evaluate and review literature. Identify where there is a gap in the evidence base to support practice. Generate evidence suitable for presentations at practice and local level.
Apply research evidence base into the workplace. Health and Safety/Risk Management Must comply at all times with the Health and Safety policies, in particular following safe working procedures and reporting incidents using the organisations Incident Reporting Systems Comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Access to Health Records Act 1990. Special working conditions The post holder is required to travel independently between work sites and to attend meetings etc hosted by other agencies. The post-holder will have contact with body fluids, i.e.
wound exudates, urine etc while in clinical practice Miscellaneous Work as part of the team to seek feedback, continually improve the service and contribute to business planning. Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner. Duties may vary from time to time, without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility

Please refer the Job description for details