Overview
The Clinical Pharmacist will play a key role within the GP surgery, working as part of a multidisciplinary team to optimise medicines use, improve patient outcomes, and support safe, effective prescribing. The postholder will provide expert clinical advice on medicines, undertake structured medication reviews, and contribute to the management of long‑term conditions in line with national and local guidelines.
They will support GPs, nurses, and other clinicians by reviewing complex polypharmacy, addressing medication‑related queries, and ensuring high‑quality, evidence‑based prescribing. The role includes responsibility for improving repeat prescribing processes, reducing medicines‑related harm, and supporting patients to get the best from their treatment through personalised care and shared decision‑making.
The pharmacist will also contribute to wider practice priorities such as QOF, IIF, medicines safety audits, and implementation of NICE guidance. They will work closely with the PCN pharmacy team, community pharmacy, and secondary care to ensure seamless medicines management across the patient pathway.
This role is essential in enhancing access to clinical support, reducing GP workload, and delivering high‑quality, patient‑centred care within the surgery.
Duties
- i) Clinical pharmacists 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.
ii) They will be prescribers, or will be completing training to become prescribers, and will work with and alongside the general practice team. They will take responsibility for the care management of patients with chronic disease 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).
iii) They will provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients in the PCNs practices and to help tackling inequalities.
iv) Clinical Pharmacists will provide leadership on person centered medicines optimization (including ensuring prescribers in the practices conserve antibiotics in line with antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services. Through structured medication reviews, clinical pharmacists will support patients to take their medicines and to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care.
v) Clinical pharmacists will have a leadership role in supporting further integration of general practices with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and to help manage general practice workload. The role has the potential to significantly improve quality of care and safety for patients.
vi) They will develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across Primary Care Networks and the wider health and social care system
vii) Clinical pharmacists will 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.
viii) All clinical pharmacists will be part of a professional clinical network and will have access to appropriate clinical supervision as outlined in the Network Contract DES guidance.
Patient facing long-term condition clinics
See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. COPD, asthma).
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 Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.
Patient facing clinical medication review
Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
Patient facing care home medication reviews
Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacist, nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review
Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacists, nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments
Manage caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.
Signpost to community pharmacy and refer to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate.
Patient facing medicines support
Provide patient facing clinics for those with medicines queries.
Telephone medicines support
Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
Medicine information to practice staff and patients
Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggest and recommend solutions.
Provide follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
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.
Management of medicines at discharge from hospital
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.
Signposting
Ensure patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time.
Repeat prescribing
Produce and implement a 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 needing a review. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
Risk stratification
Identify 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.
Service development
Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components.
Information management
Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision- making.
Medicines quality improvement
Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the Accountable Clinical Director (ACD) for the network, feedback results and implement changes in conjunction with the ACD.
Medicines safety
Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary
recommendations
Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economy’s RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs).
Assist practices in seeing and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practice’s computer system. Auditing practice’s compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
Education and Training
Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
Care Quality Commission
Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
Public health
Support public health campaigns. Provide specialist knowledge.
Education / Qualifications / Experience
- Masters Degree in Pharmacy (MPharm) or equivalent
- Registered with GPhC
- Member of RPS
- Specialist knowledge through a Postgraduate Diploma and qualifications (eg clinical, community, therapeutics) or equivalent
- Evidence of recent and relevant Continuing Professional Development
- Independent prescriber status or a commitment to undertake the course
- At least 2 years post registration experience in a hospital, community or general practice setting
- Experience of undertaking medication or medicine use reviews, and patient counselling
- Experience of working with clinicians and multidisciplinary/multiagency work
- Experience of facilitating change to improve clinical practice
- Experience of delivering training sessions to varied groups
- Experience in undertaking clinical audit
Skills and Knowledge
- Capacity to be innovative and develop the role of a practice pharmacist
- Effective interpersonal, communication (both written and oral) presentation and influencing skills
- Ability to work with a range of clinical and non-clinical personnel as part of a team
- Ability to communicate medicines and service-related information to decision makers at all levels and have advice challenged
- Ability to work independently and effectively with a high degree of motivation for long periods
- Ability to prioritise and work to deadlines, often with frequent interruptions and urgent requests
- Ability to motivate people and facilitate change
- Ability to define, collate, analyse and interpret data
- Able to utilise databases and information technology, including word processing, spreadsheets and presentation packages effectively
- Ability to communicate information to patients and carers in an appropriate manner, using well developed empathy skills
- Ability to deal with occasionally distressing or emotional circumstances, including contact with terminally ill patients and their carers or relatives
- Accepts responsibility for own work with freedom to take action based on own interpretation of broad clinical/professional policies
- Knowledge of issues regarding the protection of vulnerable adults and children, frail elderly and those with dementia
- Knowledge of medicines management issues across primary, acute and domiciliary care settings including strategies for the improvement of prescribing
- Understanding and appreciation of National and local policies which impinge on primary care prescribing
- Understanding of the current issues facing primary care team.
- Understanding of the principles of clinical governance and how these apply in the broader arena
- Understanding of personal health and safety responsibilities
- An understanding of prescribing budgets and financial information
Personal Attributes
· Professional approach to work demonstrating excellent interactive patient skills. Guided by professional code, accountable and responsible for own professional actions
· Ability to gain the confidence and credibility of a range of professionals
· Able to work under pressure and prioritise tasks to ensure urgent work is completed on time
· Able to engage rapidly with existing stakeholder and networks
· Builds credibility (personal and organisational) and rapport quickly
· Able to communicate effectively and engage with individuals from other agencies, including patients and the public
Ability to travel between sites in a timely manner if required.
Pay: £40,000.00-£50,000.00 per year
Benefits:
Work Location: In person
