Principal Clinical Pharmacist Mental Health - Division Lead

Job overview

We are seeking three experienced and motivated clinical pharmacists to join our pharmacy team as Divisional Lead Pharmacists (Band 8a).

The posts provide senior clinical leadership across the following divisions: Adult Acute and Urgent Care Services; Specialist Services (Children and Young People and  Older People); Learning Disabilities and Forensic Services; and Adult Community Services.

The roles are suited to forward‑thinking pharmacists keen to influence practice, develop services and progress as senior clinical leaders. Experience in mental health or learning disabilities is desirable but not essential, and applicants with strong transferable clinical and leadership skills are encouraged to apply.

Working closely with the pharmacy management team, senior clinicians and multidisciplinary teams, you will lead the safe, effective and person‑centered use of medicines across inpatient and community services. You will provide specialist clinical expertise, influence prescribing practice and support delivery of the Trust’s Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation Strategy.

You will join a supportive and progressive pharmacy team with strong links to multidisciplinary colleagues, senior Trust leaders and academic partners, offering opportunities to develop leadership, research and advanced practice aligned with national credentialling frameworks.

Main duties of the job

As a Divisional Lead Pharmacist, you will:

• Provide highly specialist clinical pharmacy expertise in mental health, learning disabilities and forensic services
• Lead and develop pharmacy services across assigned divisions, ensuring high-quality, evidence-based and cost-effective medicines use
• Influence prescribing practice and contribute to Trust-wide medicines optimisation strategy and governance
• Use Independent Prescribing skills (where qualified) within agreed scopes and Trust policy
• Support medicines safety through incident review, learning, audit and quality improvement initiatives
• Line manage and develop pharmacy staff, supporting education, training and workforce sustainability
• Line manage and develop Band 6/7 pharmacists and other pharmacy staff, fostering a strong learning culture
• Deliver and oversee education and training for pharmacists, technicians and wider healthcare professionals
• Contribute to policy development, formulary management and Trust committees (e.g. Drugs & Therapeutics)
• Work collaboratively across services and systems to support safe and seamless transfer of care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To work with the Chief Pharmacist and a team of clinical pharmacists and technicians to provide and support the integrated delivery of pharmaceutical care initiatives to patients with mental and physical health needs and learning disabilities in identified areas of HPFT to ensure safe, appropriate and cost-effective use of medicines.
• To provide highly specialist pharmaceutical advice concerning the care and treatment of service users in Mental Health (including Forensics) and Learning Disabilities Services and to promote safe, effective and evidence-based cost effective use of medicines within the Trust.
• To actively lead the provision and development of pharmaceutical services to a specific division.
• To provide highly specific advice to clinical team members on the management of complex medicines related issues, such as complex drug interactions, medicines use in pregnancy, unlicensed/off-label use of medicines etc.
• To provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where developed persuasive, motivational, negotiating, training, empathetic or re-assurance skills are required. This may be because agreement or co-operation is required or because there are barriers to understanding. This may also involve presenting complex, sensitive or contentious information to a large group of staff, service users or carers.
• To work as part of a multidisciplinary team to provide clinical pharmaceutical support to designated areas in order to maximise benefits and minimise risk to service users. This will include medicines reconciliation, prescription review, medication reviews, identification and management of drug interactions and adverse effects, advice on clinical monitoring, medicines information, advising on supply problems, compliance with legislation, compliance with Trust policies and guidelines and participation in multidisciplinary team meetings where appropriate.

For a more detailed description, please see attached job description and person specification or contact Nicola Headland, [email protected], or 07827 880328, Harsha Patel [email protected], 07779 555393