Advanced Community Mental Health Pharmacist (West)

Job overview

Are you an experienced mental health specialist Pharmacist looking for a unique opportunity? EPUT Pharmacy are looking for a pharmacist with a proven track record supporting patients with severe mental illness (SMI) to join our dynamic and enthusiastic team.

The NHS Mental Health Implementation Plan identified the need for additional specialist mental health pharmacists in the community to support patients with SMI. As part of our restructured pharmacy department, we have a part time opportunity for an experienced mental health specialist to join our established team of Advanced Community Mental Health Pharmacists. This is an exciting role designed to support patients with SMI live fulfilling independent lives in the community. The success of the established service based in West Essex has been shown to offer vast patient benefits and new funding has been made available to expand the team. Joining our team will provide you with opportunities to undertake further study and help support your professional development.

This post is suitable for hybrid working with time split between your trust base and home

Main duties of the job

This post is based within a multi-disciplinary team of professionals that accept GP referrals, and have the skill and knowledge to offer expert clinical advice and personalise medication plans in real time, to keep patients well. The role requires more than undertaking medication reviews, although that will be a starting point for some patients on complex regimens. Sometimes remote advice will be required; some patients you will choose to see in person. At other times you will respond to the need to upskill primary care colleagues, giving them the confidence to manage these patients. You will be expected to forge strong professional relationships with specialist nurses, psychologists and consultant psychiatrists. This role requires a zeal for mental health, and a genuine drive to help patients; You will be working to provide practical clinical solutions, and you will be changing patients’ lives for the better.

Although community based, these posts form an important pillar of the EPUT pharmacy department. At times, the post holders will need to work on our inpatient wards in order to maintain their expertise and contacts in the field. For the same reasons, supervising junior colleagues and a commitment to providing responsible pharmacist duties plus out of hours services are implicit. Post holders should ideally be registered with the GPhC as independent prescribers and be able to demonstrate their clinical credentials.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Responsible for leading and delivering a specialist clinical pharmacy service within Primary Care Networks in West Essex, to support the medicines-related care of patients, address and improve existing pathways in mental health, participate in training, education and research as required, and support robust medicines optimisation across the interface. To work within clinical competence, as part of a multi-disciplinary team, to provide highly specialised advice in medicines optimisation across the PCNs.

• Develop, promote and implement high quality, evidence based, and cost effective use of medicines at the interface, in a manner that maximises the benefits of medicines to patients and service users whilst minimising clinical, legal and financial risks
• To support and influence PCN Pharmacists and GP based Clinical Pharmacists to ensure the pharmaceutical needs of patients with mental illness are met through partnership working at the interface
• To participate as an active member of clinical teams in West Essex to support the safe and effective use of medicines.
• Communicate highly complex clinical pharmacy advice on the management of patients with mental illness in order to maximise benefit and minimise risk in relation to medicines.
• Develop, promote and implement tools within the interface that support the safe use of psychotropic medicines.

For further details see the full job description and person specification in the additional documents section.