The following are the core responsibilities of the PCN clinical pharmacist. There may be on occasion, a requirement to carry out.....
The following are the core responsibilities of the PCN clinical pharmacist. There may be on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks. This will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels: 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 highrisk 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 highrisk 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 economys 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 practices computer system. Auditing practices 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 General within the practice a. To work with your line manager to undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the roles and responsibilities b. To work with your line manager to access regular clinical supervision, to enable you to deal effectively with the difficult issues that people present c. To undertake all mandatory training and induction programmes d. To contribute to and embrace the spectrum of clinical governance e. To attend a formal appraisal with their manager at least every 12 months. Once a performance/training objective has been set, progress will be reviewed on a regular basis so that new objectives can be agreed f. To contribute to public health campaigns (e.g. flu clinics) through advice or direct care. g. To maintain a clean, tidy, effective working area at all times Secondary Responsibilities In addition to the primary responsibilities, the clinical pharmacist may be requested to: a. Support delivery of QOF, incentive schemes, QIPP and other quality or cost effectiveness initiatives. b. 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. c. Duties may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.