Highly Specialist Surgical Prescribing Pharmacist

Job overview

University Hospitals Sussex (UHS) greatly values their pharmacy team and over the years it has continued to grow in strength and numbers. We are now pleased to offer an exciting 8a prescribing surgical pharmacist post. The post holder will be a dynamic individual ready to provide expert leadership and knowledge, in surgery on the digestive diseases ward.

The post holder will be at the forefront of providing pharmacy services optimising and improving the patient experience. It will be an opportunity to share expertise in a multidisciplinary setting and have valuable input into patient outcomes.

If you are looking to drive your own career in an environment that supports your development in a captivating part of the UK then UHS could be the perfect fit for you.

You must be a Registered Pharmacist with a post graduate qualification and ideally experienced at specialist level and ideally be a prescribing pharmacist. However, we would also welcome applications from pharmacists with limited experience in digestive diseases who have successfully completed or working towards completing the independent prescribing course (or equivalent qualification). In that instance they would be offered the post as a band 7-8a progression opportunity based on a competency framework with incremental enhancement.

Main duties of the job

Medicines optimisation for General Surgical inpatients

Deputise for the lead Nutrition Specialist Pharmacist in the provision of parenteral nutrition.

Participation in daily consultant and registrar-led ward rounds

Optimisation of the discharge process which included prescribing/transcribing of discharge medicines in a timely manner as well as ensuring streamline of transfer of care

Educational support during ward rounds and via dedicated teaching sessions to junior doctors and Advance Clinical Practitioners (ACPs) within the directorate.

Participate in the provision of clinical pharmacy education for pharmacy and undergraduates at the University of Brighton (UoB) and Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS)

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

To provide clinical pharmacy services to the Abdominal Surgery & Medicine directorate. This role includes provision of ward-based pharmacy services to surgical patients as a senior specialist clinical pharmacy practitioner encompassing:

• participation in consultant led ward rounds.
• drug history taking.
• medication review (including review of complex prescribed regimes).
• prescribing to optimise medicines.
• patient counselling.
• identification of patients who need additional help with their medication.
• prioritisation of patients for early discharge.
• transcription of prescriptions for discharge medication.
• Pre-ordering medicines to facilitate discharge.

The post holder will act as a role model for the specialist clinical pharmacists, rotational pharmacists and pre-registration pharmacists and all other members of pharmacy staff.

Provide expert medicine information, and act as a resource on pharmaceutical care issues to other healthcare colleagues and patients within surgery.

The post holder will be required to evaluate and present the case for new drugs within the directorate to the Trust formulary committee/medicines management committee and expenditure committees.

To be an educational supervisor for a rotational pharmacist if there is a need and

• To be responsible for the overall supervision and management of rotational pharmacists’ educational progress during a period of training placement or series of placements.
• To be responsible for the trainee's Educational Agreement.
• To have an understanding of the range of learning, assessment, and support opportunities for learning in the workplace, work collaboratively with colleagues to monitor and support the rotational pharmacist’s progression and foster learner autonomy.
• To be able to identify and support trainees in difficulty, including interfacing with employment performance management procedures.

To input into the pharmacy team presentations at multi-disciplinary clinical and audit presentations.

If needed to be a Practice Supervisor for ACPs.

To teach junior doctors and ACPs good prescribing practices according to legal and trust requirements and to reduce clinical risks.

To participate in the provision of clinical pharmacy education for pharmacy and medical undergraduates at the University of Brighton (UoB) and Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

Service Delivery and Improvement

To be involved in implementation and further development of this novel prescribing pharmacist role following a successful pilot within the Abdominal Surgery & Medicine directorate.

To improve medicines optimisation, speed up the discharge process and improve its efficiency.

To collect data to demonstrate the impact of this novel role.

To develop standard operating procedures for pharmacists writing discharge summaries.

To participate in ward and board rounds with other members of the multidisciplinary team to optimise patients’ medicines.

To liaise with the Trust patient flow team, site management team and operations centre to ensure that discharge dispensing occurs in line with the Trust priorities for discharge.

• Please refer to attached job description.