Specialist Critical Care Clinical Pharmacist

Job overview

Are you a Band 6 clinical pharmacist who is due to complete the first year of your clinical diploma in the next few months? Or, maybe you're currently a Band 7 clinical pharmacist who has an interest in critical care and are looking to further your career to become a Specialist Pharmacist at a large teaching hospital and regional centre of excellence.

The Pharmacy Department at North Bristol NHS Trust is seeking a motivated clinical pharmacist who aspires to advance their career as a Specialist Critical Care Clinical Pharmacist. As a 12 month secondment, you will join a team of Specialist and Rotational Pharmacists, supporting the 8a lead Pharmacist for Critical Care and Theatres. This will enable you to immerse yourself fully in the specialty area, while also honing additional skills such as leadership, mentoring, and service development to enrich your personal portfolio.

The successful candidate will work as part of the multidisciplinary team to help manage the pharmaceutical needs of patients admitted to one of the largest and busiest intensive care units in the UK. NBT ICU is a 48 bedded joint ICU/HDU within Southmead hospital, the largest teaching hospital in the South West. We are a Major Trauma centre supporting the West of England and a tertiary referral centre for neurology, neurosurgery, renal disease, burns and vascular surgery. The unit is currently developing it's new 5 year plan looking ahead to 2031, with pharmacy being a key voice and area for development.

Main duties of the job

• To provide support to the Highly Specialist Critical Care and Theatres Lead Pharmacist with service development, clinical guideline development, audit, training and mentoring.
• Work closely with the Intensive Care multidisciplinary team to develop and deliver the clinical pharmacy service in accordance with Trust policies and procedures, national legislation, and standards.
• To provide specialist clinical pharmacy services at a high level to the Critical Care Specialty of the Anaesthetics, Surgery, Critical Care and Renal Division at North Bristol NHS Trust by supporting the safe and effective medicines provision for Critical Care patients throughout the whole organisation.
• To teach and supervise junior staff such as pharmacists, technicians, students and healthcare professionals. Alongside the Critical Care and Theatres Lead Pharmacist, support the education and training of rotational pharmacists and other healthcare professionals, relating to aspects of clinical pharmacy and medications linked to Critical Care patients.
• To act in accordance with Medicines legislation, the Code of Ethics of the General Pharmaceutical Council, United Kingdom Medicines Information (UKMI) standards and Trust policies and procedures.
• To contribute to the Pharmacy weekend service, late nights and provide back up support to the on call pharmacists out of hours.
• To understand more about working in Pharmacy at North Bristol, click here to watch our video!

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• In conjunction with the Critical Care and Theatres Lead pharmacist provide and develop a specialist pharmaceutical service to the intensive care unit within North Bristol NHS Trust.
• Attend speciality meetings (such as Critical Care governance reviews) and meetings with Speciality and Divisional management teams as required and produce reports on activity as directed, deputising for the lead pharmacist where appropriate.
• Advise on strategies to ensure cost-effective use of resources and be involved with achieving CIP targets. Provide feedback regarding this to prescribers.
• Support achieving general pharmacy and appropriate specialist CIP targets.
• To work closely with the Lead Formulary and Lead NICE pharmacists to help progress the Pharmacoeconomics element of the service.
• On request comment on or provide details for financial reports for the ASCR division.
• Record and investigate incidents in line with Trust procedures.
• Record clinical Pharmacy activity in line with departmental procedures.
• Audit and risk manage selected areas of practice to promote continuous quality improvement as required by the ASCR Division, Pharmacy department or the Trust.
• Clinically screen prescriptions to ensure the safe, efficient, evidence-based and rational use of medicines in line with the Trust Formulary and departmental policies so that risks to patients are minimised.
• Deliver specific improvements in the management of patient’s medication to facilitate the patient’s transfer from the intensive care unit and eventual discharge.
• Challenge inappropriate prescribing and escalate as appropriate.Attend Multi-disciplinary team (MDT) ward rounds to provide pharmaceutical expertise as capacity allows.
• Manages the pharmaceutical care of an agreed cohort of patients as an independent prescriber as required by the critical care service.
• Support and promote antimicrobial stewardship.
• Ensure that an accurate medication history and a full medicines reconciliation (in line with Trust policy) is completed for all patients seen as part of a clinical pharmacy service to allocated inpatient ward(s).
• Provide accurate medicines information to other healthcare professionals and patients.
• Provide support and implement the self-medication policy for patients able to manage their medications in this manner.
• Deliver effective management of patient's medication to ensure timely and seamless discharge of patients. Communicate effectively with healthcare colleagues in Primary care when necessary as part of this process.
• Maintain medicines management systems in conjunction with patients/carers, ward staff and pharmacy staff.
• Become familiar with and support the operation and functionality of the Phillips ICCA system on the intensive care unit, supporting the specialist Clinical Information System Pharmacist with reporting, review and validation of changes to the configuration of the system as required to ensure safe and effective prescribing in the critical care setting.
• Contribute to the training of pharmacy undergraduates, medical students, trainee pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and medical and nursing staff as appropriate.
• Support students undertaking modules or elements related to critical care as part of the Postgraduate Clinical Diploma
• Support the training of other pharmacists to competently cover the Critical Care service when needed.
• Support the development and training of trainee pharmacists as needed.
• Keep up to date with developments in Pharmacy in order to maintain a high level of professional knowledge and competence.
• Attend study days and courses as necessary for the development of the service and the individual.
• Maintain a record of CPD in line with GPhC requirements.
• Represent specialist pharmaceutical interests in MDT meetings within the Trust and in the wider local health economy, sharing knowledge and experience with other critical care pharmacists at a local and national level.
• Act as a role model for rotational pharmacists and promote best practice.
• Support management of the band 6 and 7 rotational pharmacists, including: ward visits, undertaking annual appraisal and ensuring they are meeting their agreed objectives.
• Supervise medicines management technicians and/or other dedicated pharmacy staff.
• Provide professional supervision to Patients Services on a sessional basis including being the named Responsible Pharmacist when required.
• Participate in the pharmacy weekend, bank holiday and late duty service.
• Participate in the pharmacy emergency duty “on-call” rota, if required.