Lead Pharmacist for Cancer and Palliative Care

Job summary

We are looking for a motivated and patient-centred pharmacist to join our Cancer and Palliative Care pharmacy team at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. This role offers the opportunity to provide specialist clinical care while supporting the day-to-day leadership and development of the service.

Main duties of the job

Key duties include delivering a safe, effective and responsive clinical pharmacy service to patients across cancer and palliative care wards, day units and clinics. Working closely with the multidisciplinary team, you will provide specialist advice on medicines, support the clinical verification of chemotherapy prescriptions and contribute to treatment protocols and prescribing guidelines. You will also help ensure continuity of medicines-related care between hospital and community services.

You will support the supervision and development of rotational pharmacists and other pharmacy staff, contribute to education and training, and help drive improvements in medicines safety and service quality. The role also includes supporting audit, clinical governance and the cost-effective use of medicines.

You will be a GPhC-registered pharmacist with a postgraduate diploma in clinical pharmacy or equivalent, substantial hospital clinical pharmacy experience and demonstrable experience in cancer and/or palliative care. You will have the BOPA Passport at 2b/2c haematology and 2b/2c oncology. Strong clinical judgement, effective communication skills and experience of supervising and developing others are essential, alongside the ability to work independently and collaboratively.

About us

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is a community focused provider of local and acute care, providing high quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley.

With a turnover of around £700 million, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham and a range of community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Marys Hospital in Sidcup.

The Trust has 7,500 staff and we have recently invested in our workforce to grow our establishment across a number of key services. In 2020 we won a London NHS Parliamentary Award in recognition of a wide range of initiatives to make the organisation a great place to work. We are accredited as a flexible working employer offering a number of flexible working options for staff. We are also accredited as a London Living Wage employer for our substantive, bank and contractors

Details

• Date posted: 02 November 2026
• Pay scheme: Other
• Salary: £32.50 an hour
• Contract: Bank
• Working pattern: Flexible working
• Reference number: C9197-26-0986
• Job locations: Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust, Stadium Road, London, SE18 4QH, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

1. To be responsible for the day to day leadership and management of Cancer Services at QEH.

2. To be responsible for the coordination and delivery of a responsive, proactive, patient-focused clinical pharmacy service to the Surgery and Cancer division as well as Allied Clinical Services/Medicine division across the Trust. This will include the promotion of safe, effective and cost effective drug use to facilitate patient admission and enhance continuity of care across the primary and secondary care interface.

1. To support the Lead Pharmacist Technical Services (UHL) and the Technical Services Manager in the implementation of technical service developments at QEH.

2. To support the division in managing their drugs budget and act as the point of liaison for any service developments that involves medicines or pharmacy services in Oncology and Palliative Care.

3. To act as a role model and provide a consistently high standard of pharmaceutical service to patients in line with the Trust and Departmental objectives.

4. To provide operational and clinical support to pharmacy developments as dictated by trust, departmental and service objectives. This includes supervision, training and support to junior pharmacists, pre-registration pharmacists and other pharmacy staff as necessary.

5. To deputise for the Principal Pharmacist for Cancer Services & Palliative Care as required.1. To participate in the front-line provision of Pharmacy Services as appropriate and when required. To act as a clinical pharmacist in an appropriate area and participate in consultant ward rounds as required.

2. To be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council as a pharmacist independent prescriber.

3. To practice as a pharmacist independent prescriber, where appropriate to improve patient care and safety, and to continue to develop the role of pharmacist independent prescriber within the specialty.

4. To act as a clinical role model for other pharmacists within the team and demonstrate the ability to provide service that ensures the safe, clinically effective and cost efficient use of drugs and the ability to check clinically screened dispensed prescriptions.

5. To provide a safe and patient-focused clinical pharmacy service to wards, day units and clinics across the Trust. This includes undertaking medicines reconciliation, assessing pharmaceutical needs, assessing and facilitating the use of Patients Own Drugs, ensuring appropriate drug supply, maintaining both the One Stop Dispensing system and ward based dispensing service by pharmacy staff.

6. To demonstrate an intuitive grasp of situations based on knowledge, expertise and understanding and to make decisions about drug therapy with limited information.

7. To lead the training programme within Cancer and Palliative Care for pharmacists providing service to wards and day units across the Trust to ensure efficient and safe provision of clinical pharmacy service.

8. To lead on the development and maintenance of chemotherapy proformas for Cancer and Palliative Care as pre-printed prescriptions or on the Mosaiq e-prescribing system.

9. To support clinical verification of chemotherapy prescriptions and participate in peer review of cancer services and implementing changes in line with national standards.

10. To be responsible for intrathecal chemotherapy training for pharmacy staff.

11. To support the duties within pharmacy technical services.

12. To support the investigation of medication related incidents and formulation/delivery of action plans across the Trust to address any problems identified within Cancer and Palliative Care.

13. To contribute to the development and implementation of strategies to improve safe medicines use across the Trust.

14. To liaise with primary care colleagues to gather and disseminate patient medication issues to other healthcare staff.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).