Lead Pharmacy Technician - Commercial Services

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and ambitious Pharmacy Technician to lead our Homecare and wider Commercial Services team with the operational arena of the North Bristol NHS Trust Pharmacy Department. This is a senior leadership role with a primary focus on the delivery, performance and strategic development of Pharmacy Homecare and wider commercial services.

We are a forward thinking pharmacy team, committed to innovation, patient safety, and continuous improvement across our services. In this role you will be fully empowered to lead as a strategic level, shaping services that directly impact over 7000 patients. You will lead a well-established team of registered and unregistered staff, providing clear direction, support, and development to maintain high standards of service delivery. You will also hold responsibility for service performance, governance, and commercial oversight, ensuring safe, compliant and effective delivery across all areas of the service.

We place strong emphasis on staff development, investing in our people to support continuous professional growth, leadership and career progression within a supportive environment.

This is a rare opportunity to combine clinical governance, leadership, and service innovation , with influence across the wider healthcare system

Main duties of the job

This role leads and manages a Pharmacy Homecare Team, with oversight of commercial services including logistics and WDA(H) activities. It ensures safe, effective, patient-centred service delivery while managing staff performance, workload, and capacity. The post-holder represents the organisation in NHS forums and contributes to regional and national initiatives.

A key focus is strategic development and service improvement, including implementing new ways of working such as electronic prescribing, developing homecare services, and supporting medicines optimisation and cost-efficiency. The role involves analysing performance data and producing reports and business cases to support growth.

The post-holder is responsible for governance, compliance, and risk management, ensuring adherence to medicines legislation, GDP/WDA(H), and policies. This includes SOP development, incident investigation, audits, inspections, and quality assurance.

They oversee service delivery, ensuring timely and accurate medicine supply, managing contracts and SLAs, resolving supply issues, and supporting MDT working. Financial responsibilities include budget management, KPI monitoring, supplier performance, and cost-saving initiatives.

Line management duties include recruitment, training, appraisal, and fostering an inclusive team culture. The role also includes operational responsibilities such as ACPT duties, Deputy Responsible Person, clinical prescription validation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Leadership and Service Management

• Provide leadership, direction and management of the Pharmacy Homecare Team with additional oversight of associated Commercial Services including logistics and WDA(h) activities.
• Oversee the day-to-day operational management of staff, workload and service delivery.
• Ensure all services are safe, effective, timely and patient centred.
• Manage team performance, capacity and prioritisation of workload in response to clinical need.
• Represent the organisation at regional and national meetings and contribute to the wider NHS initiatives.

Strategic Development and Service Improvement

• Lead the strategic development and alignment of Commercial Services across the organisation.
• Identify, develop and implement new and innovative ways of working. E.g. Electronic prescribing for homecare.
• Lead implementation of new homecare services, ensuring appropriate contractual, financial and governance arrangements.
• Monitor service demand and develop business cases for service expansion or redesign.
• Contribute to medicines optimisation including switching to generics and biosimilar and to also ensure financial sustainability for the organisation.
• Present service performance data, audit outcomes at departmental and trust-level meetings and regional and national groups.

Governance, compliance and risk management

• Ensure compliance with medicines legislation, GDP and WDA(h).
• Maintain high standards of governance, patient safety and risk management.
• Develop, review and implement standard operating procedures (SOPs) and policies.
• Ensure all staff are appropriately trained and compliant with SOPs and legal requirements.
• Lead investigations into incidents, complaints and near misses, implementing improvement plans.
• Conduct internal audits (e.g. Homecare Annual Audit) and external inspections (e.g. MHRA).
• Produce and present regular reports on service performance, KPIs, risks and financial metrics.
• Ensure benchmarking against local, regional and national standards.

Homecare Service Delivery

• Ensure accurate and timely supply of medicines to all homecare patients in line with prescriptions.
• Oversee service level agreements (SLAs), ensuring regular review meetings across all therapy areas.
• Manage contracts with third party providers to ensure KPI and contractual compliance.
• Escalate risks or performance issues appropriately.
• Ensure continuity of supply, resolving stock issues and urgent requests to avoid treatment delays.
• Participate in MDT working to support patient care and service development.

Financial & Contract Management

• Manage homecare services with responsibility for significant expenditure.
• Monitor, analyse and report on KPIs, financial performance and supplier activity.
• Ensure all contracts meet organisational and patient needs.
• Lead and contribute to regional and national contracting processes.
• Identify cost improvement programmes (CIPs) and medicines savings opportunities.
• Ensure accurate financial processing, invoicing and audit trails.
• Liaise with financial teams and external suppliers regarding payments and pricing.
• Analyse complex data, including confidential and commercial information.

Staff management and Workforce Development

• Lineemanage staff, including recruitment, appraisal, performance management and employee relations.
• Oversee workforce planning, rota management and workload allocation.
• Support staff training, competence assessment and professional development.
• Deliver and support induction programmes for new staff.
• Promote equality, diversity and an inclusive working culture.

Operational and Professional Responsibilities.

• Work as an Accredited Checking Pharmacy Technician
• Work as a Deputy Responsible Person (RP)
• Undertake Clinical Validation of Homecare Prescriptions.
• Work as Medicines Management Pharmacy Technician where required.
• Participate in the weekend rota.
• Provide specialist advice on homecare medicines and services.
• Maintain continuous professional development and share learning across teams.
• Ensure compliance with health and safety and all relevant policies.
• Carry out duties in line with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) standards for Registered Professionals