Prisons Services Clinical Pharmacist

Job overview

Prisons Services Clinical Pharmacist

To provide medicines optimisations services and support the GPs and dispensary team at HMP Elmley.

Main duties of the job

• To support patients with their medicine queries and concerns.
• To undertake medication review clinics.
• To stratify risk with high-risk medicines and work to reduce such risk for patients.

As part of the health and wellbeing team:

• Identify patients at risk of admission to hospital and work to manage medicine-related risk for these patients.
• Implement improvements to patients medicines for LTCs, including
• de-prescribing and run LTC clinics where medicines are a large component of care.
• Develop and manage new services that are built around new medicines or NICE guidance.
• To provide leadership to ensure practice within healthcare is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
• Working with the Specialist Prison Services Pharmacist, develop and enforce the formulary.
• Support the audit process in line with Oxleas NHSFT audit programme including and disseminate findings appropriately to improve prescribing practice.

Important Sponsorship Information for this post: We are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Management, Leadership and Training responsibilities

• To devise and implement SystmOne computer searches to identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines.
• To devise and implement SystmOne searches to identify cohorts of patients most likely to be at risk of unplanned admission/readmission to hospital from medicines.
• To provide leadership to the Healthcare Manager and GPs to ensure that practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
• As part of the Health and Wellbeing model, to contribute to public health campaigns, including flu vaccinations and adult immunisation programmes using specialist knowledge on immunisation. To ensure all relevant PGDs for immunisation are in place and staff authorised to administer using a PGD have receive the relevant training.
• Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making.
• Identify and provide leadership on areas of prescribing requiring improvement. Present results of audits and provide leadership on suggested changes.
• To develop and manage new services that are built around new medicines or NICE guidance, where a new medicine/recommendations allow the development of a new care pathway.
• Provide education and training to the primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
• Support the Specialist Prison Service Pharmacist in providing education and training to the pharmacy team members as required.
• Identify from SystmOne patients prescribed medication that should be prescribed or initiated by Specialists/hospital doctors or subject to shared care and liaise directly with hospital colleagues to ensure prescribing and dispensing of such medicines is appropriately undertaken and adheres to the requirements of the secure environment.
• Develop, implement and maintain the prison formulary, in liaison with other OPS colleagues, and ensure this is updated onto SystmOne locally when changes are made.
• Manage the process if implementing changes to medicines resulting from MHRA alerts and product withdrawals and provide guidance for practitioners.

Clinical

• Work with the dispensary and Primary Care teams to identify patients as at risk from high risk medicines to minimise such risks through medicines optimisation.
• Provide scheduled clinics for offenders across Sheppey Island Prisons (HMP Elmley, HMP Swaleside and HMP Standford Hill) to give advice and support on their prescribed medicines, OTC medicines and other medical issues they may raise.
• To put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of medicines likely to cause readmission to high-risk patient groups.
• Promote healthy lifestyles for offenders in line with local and national guidelines or promotions.
• To be an active member of the Kent prisons clinical governance/medicines management committee(s).
• To provide face to face clinics to help patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• To hold clinics for patients requiring face-to-face Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) i.e. a review of the ongoing need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their concordance with prescribed medication.
• To undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multi-morbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests.
• To see patients in multi-morbidity clinics and in partnership with the Health and Wellbeing coordinator(s), implement improvements to the patient’s medicines, including deprescribing.
• Run own long term conditions clinics where responsible for prescribing as an independent prescriber for conditions where medicines have a large component (e.g. stable angina, warfarin monitoring and dose adjustment).
• To demonstrate on-going continual professional development (CPD) and be responsible for self-development and learning within the field of pharmacy or other specialty where appropriate.
• Make recommendations for and manage changes to medicines (switches) designed to save on medicines costs where a medicine or product with a lower acquisition cost is now available.
• Answer all medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other healthcare staff and patients with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
• Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance, including national prison formularies.

Research

• To ensure systems are in place that support the implementation of evidence-based guidelines into practice within the Sheppey Prisons.
• To undertake own audit of prescribing practices), analyse complex data, feedback results and make suggestions for change.
• Audit compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance involving medication at Sheppey Prisons. Feeding back findings, analysis and solutions to the GPs and Medicines Management Committee.

Communication

• To make clinical judgments within your clinical ability where information is highly complex or lacking or ambiguity exists. Where such judgments are outside of your clinical ability to refer the situation to a more senior pharmacist or GP for assistance.
• To provide newsletters on important prescribing messages to improve prescribers’ knowledge and work with the GP and Primary Care team to develop and implement other techniques known to influence implementation of evidence – such as audit and feedback.
• To communicate with external healthcare providers to ensure prisoners are treated with medication suitable for continuation on return to the secure environment.

Other

• Post holders will be subjected to an advanced DBS check and a prison security check (level 2).
• To appreciate the secure environment you are working in and to adhere to all prison procedures as necessary.

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ BEFORE APPLYING:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

You will need to provide:

Proof of right to work documentation

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.

Address History:

5 years address history will be needed.

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en).