Lead Pharmacist, EPMA

Job overview

We are in the exciting position to recruit an enthusiastic and highly motivated Lead Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (EPMA) pharmacist. The successful candidate will be expected to support the pharmacy development and ongoing maintenance of ePMA on the Royal Surrey NHS FT site. The postholder will be responsible for the management of the Senior EPMA Pharmacy Technician, and will also deputise for the Principal Pharmacist for EPMA as required. They will provide site-specific leadership related to the EPMA system, ensuring an appropriate focus on clinical risk management, quality assurance and medicines optimisation.   The postholder will also be responsible for site-specific EPMA governance ensuring that quality management systems, policies and standard operating procedures are in place.  They will lead the development of EPMA policies and education and training materials, taking responsibility for writing the clinical elements, supervising the Senior Technician with writing the technical elements and ensuring that all documents are tailored appropriately for the Trust.  The EPMA system is part of the wider Oracle Health electronic patient record (ePR) programme rolled out between both the Royal Surrey NHS FT and Ashford and St. Peters Hospital NHS FT known as Millennium ePR.If you would like to discuss the role further, please contact Feroz Mohabuth, Principal Pharmacist EPMA ([email protected])

Main duties of the job

Lead Pharmacist for the system build and ongoing development of the Oracle Health Electronic Prescribing & Medicines Administration (EPMA) system across Ashford & St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust (ASPH) and Royal Surrey Foundation NHS Trust (RSFT).

The postholder will be responsible for the management of the Senior Technician, and will also deputise for the Principal Pharmacist for EPMA as required. Management responsibilities may change as the team grows. They will provide site-specific leadership to ensure that the EPMA system is maintained with an appropriate focus on clinical risk management, quality assurance and medicines optimisation to facilitate the delivery of EPMA and programme objectives.  The postholder will also be responsible for site-specific EPMA governance ensuring that quality management systems, policies and standard operating procedures are in place.  They will lead the development of EPMA policies and education and training materials, taking responsibility for writing the clinical elements, supervising the Senior Technician with writing the technical elements and ensuring that all documents are tailored appropriately for the Trust.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Support with the development of a strategy to inform the ongoing maintenance and post-implementation development of the EPMA system, to ensure that pathways, protocols, decision-support, formulary etc continue to evolve and reflect national and local advice on the safety and use of medicines

• Be a champion in promoting the EPMA system in an effective and positive manner to relevant clinical groups, within the Trust Responsible for the management of the EPMA Senior Technician, ensuring that they have appropriate competencies to deliver the requirements of the EPMA service; and providing leadership, mentoring, coaching and training to facilitate their personal development Assess staff performance against agreed performance standards/objectives and/or competencies at least annually; and develop meaningful and achievable personal development plans and objectives Attend Millennium ePR Project Boards and present at various meetings as necessary, as required by the Principal Pharmacist for EPMA Be familiar with the range of EPMA systems in place nationally and installations underway, establishing beneficial networks with other key organisations with a view to collaborating to develop best practice and standardisation of workflows Attain and maintain expert EPMA status with respect to configuration, functionality and associated work practices; and be recognised as an EPMA expert within the Trust Support with the identification, assessment and management of the main priorities and risks associated with projects Provide input into the planning of hardware evaluation and proposing and organising solutions according to the needs of different users within the organisation Assist in developing site-specific pre and post process maps of all medicines-related tasks in order to redesign where necessary Support the development of change management, marketing, communication and implementation plans for EPMA, taking the lead to ensure that these are tailored and appropriate for the Trust Lead the future implementation of the Oracle Health EPMA software across other sites. Provide continued on-the-ground support for staff immediately following go-live of new systems, to ensure that the process of change is handled with maximum take-up and minimum disruption to clinical services Lead on the pre and post implementation measuring and assessment of relevant KPIs to demonstrate the benefits realisation of the system within the Trust Support with the development of system data which can be used to populate a quality and/or efficiency dashboard, ensuring this is tailored appropriately for the Trust Support the Principal Pharmacist, EPMA to provide expert clinical opinion to digital forums in relation to clinical system updates, ongoing maintenance, planned downtime, major incident planning, disaster recovery planning and policy development Implement systems to identify key therapeutic changes relating to the use and/or safety of medicines e.g. medicines database, safety alerts, formulary changes, protocol and guideline changes etc; and ensure that these are built into the EPMA system and prescribing practice in a timely way Support the development and prioritisation of a programme of work to support the ongoing maintenance and development of the EPMA structure, taking into account the strategy for EPMA, Millennium ePR programme objectives and the Trust’s digital strategy; and take the lead for implementation of this programme of work Liaise with the Trust’s Pharmacy Clinical and Operational teams to identify how best EPMA can be utilised to meet patient needs and manage and reduce risks Lead site-specific development and implementation of pathways, prescribing protocols, clinical decision support, power plans, database, user access levels and ‘prescription sets’; ensuring appropriate supervision of the Senior Technician for EPMA who is responsible for technical aspects of this work Contribute, and lead where required, to discussions with other key pharmacy managers to plan for impact of changes on pharmacy processes and systems Provide clinical oversight in future state medications management workflows, from design through testing to final sign off and Go Live; ensuring appropriate liaison with the wider Pharmacy and Clinical Teams within the Trust Lead the implementation of solutions to support delivery of cost improvement and transformation plans and schemes; and medicines-related CQUINs (if applicable) Ensure the EPMA system adheres to all relevant national and local standards

e.g. Medicines & Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA); NHS I/E,  General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

(RSPGB), Information Governance, Human Medicines Regulations 2012 etc

• Responsible for ensuring that appropriate quality management systems are in place for all aspects of EPMA, ensuring these are tailored for the Trust Responsible for ensuring that relevant and up to date policies and standard operating procedures are in place to support the safe governance of EPMA; taking a lead role in developing clinical elements of these documents Responsible for ensuring that all system changes are accurately built, quality assured for completeness and have received the required approval prior to activation Maintain an accurate record of local design decisions and minute meetings as appropriate Assist in the identification and management of key risks in relation to the implementation and the day to day running of the final solution Establish local systems to proactively identify issues with the EPMA system or how staff use the system; ensuring that specific incidents are reported on Datix, undertake root cause analysis and share learning with individual staff members and/or the organisation, as appropriate Support, and lead where required, at relevant Pharmacy departmental meetings to enable pharmacy staff to be brought up to date on current issues and to address staff development needs with respect to EPMA Advise on, and develop, structured training plans for users of EPMA systems, ensuring that key workflows and risk management are considered and reflect the local requirements of the Trust Oversee the localisation of training materials, providing key input into medications management training strategy and plan Assist in research and audit activity by enhancing the collection, management and analysis of clinical information from the EPMA system; and acting upon findings to develop and optimise the EPMA system