Personal Assistant to Chief Pharmacist

Job overview

An exciting maternity cover opportunity has become available to work within a forward-thinking department in Pharmacy, for the role of Personal Assistant. The ideal candidate would be an extremely organised individual, computer-literate and with excellent communication skills.

Main duties of the job

To act as a Personal Assistant to Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation & Chief Pharmacist by planning and organising the business administration of the Pharmacy Directorate.

To provide a comprehensive and confidential administrative support to the pharmacy team.

To be responsible for the administrative functions and the smooth and efficient running of the pharmacy office, handling sensitive and complex issues in a professional manner, and managing the HR aspects of the department of pharmacy recruitment processes.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Personal Assistant Duties

• Support the Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation & Chief Pharmacist by providing a high standard of administrative support to meet the needs of the pharmacy objectives, executed with maximum efficiency and effectiveness, with particular emphasis on appropriateness, accuracy and timeliness.

• Assist in the management and organisation of the Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation & Chief Pharmacist’s calendar by scheduling appointments and meetings as required, booking of rooms and preparation of documents.

• Sorting and prioritising all incoming mail/emails for the managers, distributing and responding to as appropriate and ensuring flagged when necessary

• Respond to correspondence and to draft replies/reports for discussion and agreement.

• To prepare formal agenda, take minutes for meetings, distribution of papers to team members as required and carry out other general secretarial and administrative duties.

• Manage an effective bring-forward system to ensure correspondence and relevant information are available for timely action to meet agreed deadlines.

• To deal with general telephone reception work including the resolution of telephone enquiries of a non-technical nature and ensure that these are answered personally or by the appropriate Pharmacy Department staff member.

• Meeting and greeting visitors and stakeholders at all levels of seniority.

• Receipt and distribution of Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation & Chief Pharmacist mail, using initiative to act where appropriate and liaising with all grades of staff, external bodies and the public in the resolution of enquiries as necessary.

• Prioritise own tasks, exercising a degree of independence, initiative, and judgement. Assess situations, identify, and resolve potential problems within own skill set.

• Planning, arranging and co-ordination of annual pharmacy away day and any other events as required.

• Maintaining personal files for pharmacy staff. Maintaining an effective filing system and ensuring the security of confidential files.

• Utilise the NHS Business Authority EPACT 2 system to create monthly financial reports.

• Ensure stationery stock levels are maintained for the Directorate and ensure ordering of supplies when appropriate

• To provide assistance as and when required with projects or specific work within the Directorate

• To undertake any other duties, required by the Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation & Chief Pharmacist, appropriate to grade and relevant to the post.

Business & Administration Office Management

• To be responsible for administrative functions and general smooth and efficient running of the pharmacy Business and Administration office.

• To be accountable for, provide leadership to, and day to day supervision of, the business support officers and pharmacy business apprentice in the pharmacy department, ensuring appraisals are completed in line with Trust objectives, the service requirements are provided, and the performance of individual staff is managed appropriately

• To undertake shortlisting and conducting interviews for team vacancies

• To prepare and distribute the business and clerical hub rota for team

• To order FP10 (HNC), FP10 (PN), FP10 (NC) prescriptions and order outpatient prescriptions.

• To control the receipt, distribution, and security of external prescription pads, FP10 (HNC) and costing out of FP10 (HNC) prescriptions on JAC.

• To ensure the monthly payroll including, on call payments and electronic time off in lieu (TOIL) forms are processed on time for all pharmacy department staff.

• To support the management of performance planning and PDR reviews for all pharmacy staff, in accordance with Trust Policy and Trust targets and updating PDR data annually on the Trust Appraisal tracker.

• Utilising the E-Rostering System to monitor, record and report appropriate data in relation to staff sickness and annual leave. Use the relevant e-rostering documentation to ensure employee work patterns and hours are updated. Ensure that yearly annual leave entitlements for all pharmacy staff are updated on E-rostering in advance of the new financial year.

• Ensure archiving or disposal of documentation as appropriate.

• To order and receipt goods in accordance with the Trust’s financial framework.

• Ensuring maintenance contracts/licences and subscriptions are renewed appropriately

• Ensuring authorisation of invoices by the relevant signatories.

• To use a variety of software packages including Microsoft Office Suite, MS teams, N365,  email and bespoke packages to produce correspondence and maintain records, departmental spreadsheets and databases

People management

• To manage all personnel matters relating to the employment of staff within the Department of Pharmacy including:

• Utilising the TRAC recruitment management system to upload, monitor and track progress of pharmacy vacancies.  This includes, sending out interview invites, preparing interview packs and documentation for the interview panel, facilitating assessments centres and      co-ordinating interview schedules, supporting line managers with the use of the TRAC recruitment system and tracking employment checks and references.

• Responsible for administration and completion of recruitment documentation for successfully appointed internal candidates, (i.e., offer letters, references and contracts/amendments, health clearances)

• Maintaining the pharmacy vacancy tracker and departmental staff records.

• Support the introduction of new colleagues into the department.

• Completion and processing of electronic contract change requests, salary changes, termination forms, maternity/paternity, secondments, substantive bank posts, using the Trust staff admin system.

• To record and monitor pharmacy staff sickness on the Electronic Staff Record (ESR)

• To ensure that processes exist for effectively communicating with all Trust staff on issues of a pharmaceutical nature, as directed by the Associate Director of Medicines Optimisation & Chief Pharmacist

• To oversee the monthly and weekly payroll administration to the required deadlines and maintaining electronic time off in lieu records for all pharmacy department employees.

• To ensure working hours for Locum staff is recorded and sent to Management Accounts team monthly.

Communication & Relationships

• Develops and maintains excellent working relationship with pharmacy workforce, Senior Pharmacy Leadership team, other stakeholders and external partners

• Handles sensitive data confidentially