Pharmacy Technician

at  Primary Care Support

PRIMARY CARE SUPPORT OFFER:

• 6 weeks annual leave + bank holidays
• Mentor scheme
• Supportive team of experienced primary care pharmacy professionals
• Career development prospects
• CPPE Pathway (where applicable)

JOB SUMMARY

• The post holder will take a central role in reviewing, improving and implementing the practice we support with repeat prescribing policies to ensure all staff are aware of the correct procedures to run a safe, cost effective, efficient, but patient friendly, repeat prescription system.
• The post holder will be the main contact point for non-clinical medication related queries from pharmacies, nursing home, and other health care professionals, to improve the accuracy of patient medication records.
• They will be responsible for issuing repeat prescriptions that are requested at the practice.
• Will act as a pharmacy technician who provides technical medicines management (MM) services to all sites to improve the use of medicine.
• Provide a range of MM services to patients and practice staff. They will liaise with patients, general practitioners, practice staff, other primary health care team staff, partner organisations and members of local ICB’s Medicines Management team, to ensure that patients are provided with the most cost effective medicines and those patients get the best from their medicines.
• Work to ensure that medicines are handled safely and securely within current legislative framework.
• To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients 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 or those in care homes).

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

• To supervise and train relevant practice receptionist undertaking generation of repeat prescriptions
• To attend any additional training events around the management of patients repeat medication provided by the Primary Care Support or other external bodies.

CONFIDENTIALITY

In the course of seeking treatment, patients entrust us with, or allow us to gather, sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters. They do so in confidence and have the right to expect that staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately.
In the performance of their duties outlines in this job description, the post-holder may have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carers, practice staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access to information relating to the practice as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential.
Information relating to patents, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the practice policies and procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data.

GENERAL CLAUSE

This job description is not intended to be exhausted but to indicate the main responsibility of the post and may be amended from time to time after consultation with the post holder.

QUALIFICATIONS & TRAINING

1
BTEC Certificate in Pharmaceutical Sciences, or City and Guilds Dispensing Certificate, or Apothecaries Hall Certificate or NCQ equivalent.
A/I
2
Registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council
A/I
3
Evidence of continuing development and training
A/I
4.
Member of the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK with a commitment to voluntary registration in the interim period and awareness of plans for CPD
A/I

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE

1.
Experience of working within the NHS.
A/I
2.
Experience as a certified Pharmacy Technician working in primary or secondary care
A/I
3.
Experience of medication counselling and regular contact with patients
A/I
4.
Good knowledge of medicines and basic clinical information
A/I
5.
A knowledge of primary care NHS structures and of the prescribing issues affecting primary care and its interface with secondary care.
A/I
6.
A knowledge of methods of analysis of prescribing
A/I
7.
Acknowledge of current national medicines management initiatives and their successes.
A/I
8.
Analysis of prescribing statistics
A/I

SKILLS

1.
Able to plan own workload in line with priorities and objectives
A/I
2.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
A/I
3.
Excellent presentation skills, proficient in work processing skills
A/I
4.
Good interpersonal skills
A/I
5.
Proficient in spreadsheet packages. Internet awareness.
A/I
6.
Report writing skills
A/I
7.
Ability to travel to the office
A/I
8.
Able to work as part of a team
A/I
9.
Able to work under pressure
A/I

PRINCIPLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• To be responsible for all repeat prescribing requests
• To reduce waste, minimise risk and improve repeat prescription process
• To improve prescription security by introducing best practice guidelines
• To be responsible for any audits/ searches/ work streams deemed appropriate by the surgery team
• To undertake proactive “housekeeping” management of the repeat prescribing process in accordance with practice, ICB and PCN protocols.
• To deal with non-routine, non-clinical medication queries that require follow up and problem solving techniques.
• Identify patients who would be suitable for repeat dispensing
• To ensure information from pharmacy MURs is acted upon as appropriate
• To undertake practice based ICB and PCN project work to make cost savings on the prescribing budget
• To help the prescribing lead with any searches, data collection and letter production required for prescribing changes.
• To ensure all medicines that are stored at the six sites, including emergency drugs, GP home visit bags and oxygen, are done so in a safe manner following national guidelines
• To review and manage all patients using medication deemed to be high risk, ensuring the recommended monitoring is completed at the appropriate intervals and when this monitoring is outstanding implement practice protocol to ensure it is continued in a safe manner.

Clinical and Patient focused

• To carry out technical medication reviews at practice level, patient’s homes and nursing homes under the agreed protocol determining the best way to improve individual patient concordance/ compliance.
• To liaise with patients, carers, GPs, community pharmacists and secondary care as necessary and to implement any authorised actions, ensuring that changes are communicated to the patient
• To work independently and take responsibility for implementing changes to patients’ medication, within Standing Operating Procedures (SOP), e.g aligning quantities, adding directions, dose optimisation, removing medication from repeat prescribing list and to refer areas of concern where appropriate
• To deal with routine queries or complaints, some of which may be sensitive, from patients who may be distressed or unhappy with changes made to their medication, either face to face or on the telephone