PRIMARY CARE NETWORKS IN CITY AND HACKNEY
CLINICAL PHARMACIST – SHOREDITCH PARK & CITY PCN
Job Title: Primary Care Network (PCN) Clinical Pharmacist
Salary: £46,000-£52,000 per annum pro rata (depending on experience)
Contract: 12 months
Hours: Part – Time (22.5 hours per week)
We are looking only for candidates able to work in practice- no remote working applications will be accepted.
Reporting to: GP Clinical Lead within the GP Practice on a day-to-day basis
Accountable to: Primary Care Network Clinical Director
Job Summary
Groups of GP Practices in City and Hackney have recently come together to form 8 Primary Care Networks (PCNS) each covering a total population of between 30,000-56,000. The purpose of these PCNs is to enable GP practices to work together in a collaborative way to develop and deliver network-based services that respond to the needs of the local population.
The Shoreditch Park & City PCN in City and Hackney is seeking to recruit a PCN Clinical Pharmacist to develop and support medicines optimisation work within the Shoreditch Park & City PCN. You will be based at De Beauvoir Surgery. The candidate will be exposed to a breadth of different clinical experiences, working with very different patient demographics. No 2 days will be the same.
The post holder will work as part of a passionate multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management and work proactively with other healthcare professionals as part of a multidisciplinary team across the PCN. The successful candidate will join a core Pharmacy Team and will be supported by a Senior Clinical Pharmacist supervisor, GP and other support staff. Regular development sessions, teaching, training and opportunities to upskill will be provided. You will work against a strong personalised development pathway. The PCN supports Pharmacists interested in becoming independent prescribers.
Clinical pharmacists have a key role in supporting delivery of the network contract Direct Enhanced Service (DES) specifications.
The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will need to be committed to improving health and putting patients first. Key qualities will be the ability to build effective relationships with patients, GPs, nurses, community pharmacists, hospital and practice staff, and to work effectively as part of a team. Demonstrable general pharmaceutical skills and knowledge in core areas, including long term conditions, together with a good understanding of general practice are essential.
Primary roles and responsibilities of PCN pharmacists
The PCN Clinical Pharmacist will:
· 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;
· be a prescriber, or completing training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the general practice team;
· 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);
· provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients at the PCN’s practice(s) and to help in tackling inequalities;
· provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation (including ensuring prescribers in the practice conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services;
· through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote selfcare;
· have a leadership 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;
· develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across PCNs and the wider health and social care system;
· 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.
Key aspects of PCN pharmacist role
Patient facing role undertaking face to face medications reviews for:
· patients on complex polypharmacy with long term conditions
· housebound patients
· specific disease areas identified as a priority area within the PCN
· Review patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required.
· Review on-going need for each medicine, assess monitoring requirements and support patients to ensure treatment is safe, appropriate and optimised for maximum clinical benefit.
· Discuss recommendations and outcomes with relevant members of the PCN team and provide appropriate and timely follow up.
· Support patients to optimise medicines by providing additional written patient information leaflets, and liaise with community pharmacists about the need for special requirements to aid adherence.
Management of Common/Minor/Self-Limiting Ailments
· Support practices in improving patient access for minor ailments and acute presentations.
· Promote the importance of self-care and signpost patients to community pharmacies in line with national guidance on over the counter medicines.
Medicines Information to Practice Staff and Patients
· Support relevant medicine-related enquiries from the practice team, PCN team, community pharmacists and patients.
· Update practice teams at weekly meetings on current medicines related information and issues with a view to educating and improving prescribing within the practice.
· Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to practice staff regularly to highlight prescribing issues.
· Communicate recommended actions relating to medication and medical device safety alerts.
Medicines Reconciliation
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.
Commissioned improvements for QIPP and medicines optimisation
Support the practice and the PCN in delivering the outcomes as required in the medicines section of the Clinical Commissioning Contract
Signposting
Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for specialist referral, monitoring and/or referred to the social prescriber for further support services where required.
Repeat Prescribing
· Review, implement and support adherence to the practice repeat prescribing policy.
· Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those patients needing a review.
· Ensure patients on repeat prescriptions have the required monitoring and assessments undertaken as appropriate to their condition(s) and medicines prescribed.
Clinical Governance
· Communicate, action and support implementation of MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and other local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations.
· Undertake clinical audits in priority areas identified by the CCG medicines management team or within the PCN and feedback results to practices and the PCN and support them in implementing recommendations.
· Support practices and PCNs in identifying and reporting onto NRLS any incidents relating to medicines. Be involved in investigating medicines incidents and identifying and implementing any required system improvements.
· Support implementation of shared care protocols in practice, including processes to improve monitoring of high- risk drugs.
· Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews.
· Identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared practice computer searches e.g. using PINCER and other tools.
· Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
Education and Training
Contribute to the provision of education and training on medicines optimisation and specific therapeutic areas to healthcare professionals within the PCN and to the wider CCG/ICB geography.
Public Health
· To support public health campaigns.
· To provide specialist advice on all public health programmes available to the general public.
General
· Undertake any other work supporting medicines optimisation in GP practices and the PCN commensurate with the banding of the post and which is agreed between the postholder and the manager
Background and Support from the NEL, City & Hackney Medicines Management Team
Primary Care Network (PCN) leads across City and Hackney are working closely with the City and Hackney Medicines Management Team (MMT) to deliver a consistent approach to medicines optimisation across the health economy. The City and Hackney health system has a long history of innovative working and cross organisational collaboration to strive to deliver better health outcomes for the local population of approximately 320 000 patients.
We have a well-established track record in the delivery of a high standard of care for residents and patients across City and Hackney. City & Hackney is one of only 3 London CCGs to be rated as outstanding (less than 10% of CCGs nationally were rated as outstanding) for the 2018/19 Improvement and Assessment Framework. In addition, City and Hackney was the top performing CCG area in England for 12 measures of care for people with long term conditions including management of blood pressure.
The City and Hackney Medicines Management Team has successfully delivered a range of different projects across the interface and were HSJ finalist in 2015. The MMT are keen to offer additional support to the new wave of pharmacists entering primary care at this exciting time. Candidates recruited into this role will be joining a strong established team of clinical pharmacists based in general practice. City and Hackney was an early adopter of the NHS England pilot phase of recruiting pharmacists into general practice. New recruits will be given direct access into the established network comprising of CCG pharmacists, practice based pharmacists, clinical specialist pharmacists, audit pharmacist, hospital and community pharmacists and other project pharmacists. The MMT is working with the current pool of pharmacists to improve error reporting in primary care, deliver targeted hypertension clinics, medication review clinics, asthma and COPD clinics and the delivery of audits and QIPP work.
The CCG Medicines Management Team is keen to provide PCN Clinical Pharmacists in City & Hackney with additional support and opportunities including the provision of peer support, access to practice level audits and clinical reports, locally accessible guidelines, support with formulary decisions and interface queries, and skills development to enable further clinical activities and patient support.
Key Collaborative Working Relationships
The post-holder will be required to work with a wide range of stakeholders. It is important that the post holder recognises the roles of other colleagues to person-centred care, and liaises with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients including:
· Patients and Patient Participation Groups (PPGs)
· GPs, nurses and other practice staff
· Other healthcare professionals including CCG pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, optometrists, dentists, health and social care teams, dieticians etc.
· Locality / GP prescribing lead and Locality managers
· Community nurses and other allied health professionals
· Integration between general practice community and hospital pharmacy teams
· Ability to work as a member of a team within the PCN
· Collaboration with network resources to support care management plans and social prescribing
Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required (please see Person Specification)
· Has experience/awareness of the breadth of common acute and long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice.
· Minimum of 2 years post graduate experience in pharmacy, as demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
· Holds an independent prescribing qualification, is working towards a qualification or has the intention to complete this in the future.
· Demonstrates an understanding of the role of a clinical pharmacist within primary care and where it fits into and how it complements the practice team and the wider PCN team.
· Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision.
· Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
Health and Safety/Risk Management
An expectation is for all staff to have a commitment to promoting and maintaining a safe and healthy environment and be responsible for their own and others welfare. In addition, staff will be expected to undertake the statutory mandatory health and safety training and other training relevant to their specialist area of work.
Equality and Diversity
The post-holder must co-operate with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment and complete the required statutory mandatory training.
Patient Confidentiality
The post-holder should respect patient confidentiality at all times and not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the requirements of the role.
In view of the dynamic nature of the role, this job description is intended to provide an outline of the duties and responsibilities; it will be subject to review and amendment as necessary in consultation with the post holder.
Person Specification
The person specification describes the characteristics (skills, knowledge, experience and qualifications) that are needed to carry out the duties in the job description.
Professional Registration
Registered as a pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council
Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Desirable
A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Desirable
Qualifications
Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent)
Specialist knowledge acquired through post-graduate diploma level or equivalent training/experience Desirable
Independent prescriber or working towards/intent of gaining independent prescribing qualification Desirable
Skills, Knowledge & Experience
Minimum of 2 years post‐qualification experience
In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence‐based healthcare Desirable
A good understanding of general practice and primary care
Is able to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for Long Term Conditions Desirable
An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing and the importance of medicines optimisation and person centred care.
Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients)
Good IT skills
Ability to obtain and analyse complex technical information
Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines
Produce timely and informative reports
Work effectively independently and as a team member
Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
Self-Motivated, positive attitude, adaptable, self-aware and able to gain respect, trust and co-operation quickly
Other
Commitment to equality and diversity
Information Governance toolkit completion Desirable
Current DBS check
Reference number: U0090-26-0020
Closing date is 22nd September 2026
Experience:
- post‐qualification : 2 years (required)
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (required)
Work Location: In person
