Principal Pharmacist

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced mental health pharmacist to join our dynamic, innovative team who are dedicated to improving our services across the Trust, by leading the Bethlem Royal Hospital (BRH) pharmacist team across both inpatient and community services.

We are looking for someone with experience and with natural leadership qualities. Your role will involve delivering best outcomes for patients with a focus on preventing hospital admissions both for mental and physical ill health, improved medicines management and communication, particularly during transfer of care and high quality, evidence-based medicines use.

You must have excellent communication skills and be able to influence prescribing and medicines practice at a high level. You must be able to collect, analyse and report on data in a meaningful way to gain co-operation from stakeholders and present your work at Trust meetings in a confident, friendly and enthusiastic manner.

Main duties of the job

As the principal pharmacist and site lead for BRH you will be working closely with experienced and novice clinicians to ensure safe, effective and cost-effective use of medicines. You will be providing line-management and supervision to a team of pharmacists across the boroughs.

You will make recommendations for initiating, changing and stopping medications, including where appropriate, that clozapine and antipsychotic long-acting injections are offered early in the treatment journey. You will consult with patients and their carers to ensure they receive expert advice on their medicines and are supported to manage their medicines.

You will work closely with teams, managers, and service directors to implement sustainable processes to ensure positive outcomes for patients and their carers.

We expect you to have a good knowledge of psychotropic medications and the ability to independently make appropriate decisions about treatment options. You should be able to communicate clinical information effectively and be able to influence prescribing practices in your boroughs. We expect that you would manage your own time and work schedule effectively.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To lead, develop and evaluate clinical pharmacy services provided by South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM) in the London Borough of Croydon.
• To professionally manage pharmacists in the inpatient services at BRH and the community mental health teams in Croydon.
• To provide expert level advice on pharmaceutical matters to SLAM, Kings Health Partners and local ICBs.
• To represent pharmacy at the SLAM Croydon directorate meetings.
• To provide an analysis of medicines spend for Croydon services.
• To be a role model in pharmacy mental health services.
• To deputise for the Director of Pharmacy.
• To be willing to participate in weekend, Bank Holiday and on call rotas if required.