37.5 hours per week

We are seeking an exceptional Pharmacist to join our Pharmacy team, as the Lead Pharmacist for Mental Health and Substance Misuse. You will be a confident and motivated individual working closely with other senior healthcare professionals within and outside of the organisation. You will hold a highly visible role in the Organisation and work closely with partner organisations.

As Lead Pharmacist you will lead the strategic development of the Clinical Pharmacy Service to Mental Health and Substance Misuse and recommend and facilitate sustained changes to ensure high quality, safe evidence-based and cost-effective medicine use within these areas. You will be a pharmacist with a passion and commitment who wants to develop the service and others working within it. You will be at the forefront of innovation with an abundance of opportunity. In this post your personal and professional development will be key to achieving job satisfaction and success. You will be supported in your clinical and leadership development by senior pharmacists and others in the wider Organisation. You will be part of a likeminded team of pharmacy professionals, which will help to aid your personal and clinical development and provide you with a great network of peers.

This role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route, please refer to the Direct Gov website for more information with regards to eligibility.

Main duties of the job

The Lead Pharmacist for Mental Health and Substance Misuse is a key role within LSW, providing clinical and managerial support to the Mental Health and Substance Misuse Pharmacy Team. The post holder will be responsible for the coordination of clinical pharmacy services to wards, units, and service areas, including responding to and further developing a medicines information service. They will lead on and develop clinical audits within mental health and substance misuse and have the opportunity to be involved in and lead on research. The post holder will lead, develop, evaluate, and formulate long-term strategic plans to ensure a consistently high-quality medicines optimisation service to Mental Health and substance misuse. They will work with MDTs integrating services across LSW and collaborate and contribute to the wider Devon system. They will work closely with other Pharmacy leads in partner organisations. The post holder will lead and develop opportunities for research.They will contribute to the LSW Senior Pharmacy Leadership team agenda, presenting a strategic vision and delivery plan on pharmacy services in these areas. They will work at an advanced level and have the opportunity to work towards a portfolio as a Consultant Pharmacist. The post holder will have overall responsibility for the development and provision of a specialist clinical pharmacy service, and act as the pharmacy lead for Mental Health and Substance Misuse.

About us

Livewell Southwest is an independent, award-winning social enterprise providing integrated health & social care services for people across Plymouth, South Hams & West Devon, as well as some specialist services for people living in parts of Devon & Cornwall. With teams in community hospitals, GP practices, sports centres, health & wellbeing hubs.

As an organisation with a strong social conscience, we always value being kind, respectful, inclusive, ambitious, responsible and collaborative. Transforming services to make them sustainable, ensuring that we value, support & empower each other.

We are committed to involving the people we care for, families & carers in everything that we do, working towards co-production where we can. Helping us to deliver the right care for people, in the right place & at the right time. By putting people at the centre of what we do, we ensure to support people to lead, healthy independent lives & be the very best at helping people to live well.

Valuing our employees making an investment in their development a priority. We offer:

Protected CPD time for registered staff

Various development pathways and ongoing regular training packages for all staff

Leadership & mentoring programmes

Access & funding for training including Care Certificate, Assistant Practitioners Course & Scholarship Into Nurse Training

A Robust Preceptorship

A bespoke induction programme

Existing members of the NHS Pension Scheme can continue their membership when they join the organisation.

Job description

Job responsibilities

To maintain a clinical expertise and develop areas of interest as appropriate and relevant to the substantive role and in accordance with the Organisation and Pharmacy Strategy

To be recognised as an expert within the specialty of clinical pharmacy, locally and nationally and/or internationally contributing to policy development.

To demonstrate expert clinical knowledge, accepting case referrals for medicines optimisation within a specialty of Mental Health, managing and making referrals to other members of the MDT.

To provide a clinical pharmacy service according to Organisation agreed standards and lead the pharmacy service for mental health and substance misuse, acting as a clinical role model and inspiring others to excel in practice.

To ensure medicines are used appropriately, safely and cost-effectively in accordance with Organisational policy, SOPs and medicines legislation

To monitor medicines use within Mental Health and Substance Misuse, including recording of significant clinical interventions, risk management and medicines safety

Investigating and resolving of complaints related to medicines

Recording significant clinical incidents/near misses related to medicines

• Investigating and resolving of all medication related incidents
• Ensuring compliance with medicines legislation and local policies
• Implementation of safety alerts, CQC outcomes and NHSLA recommendations
• To use available information to influence prescribers and ensure patient-centred and cost-effective choice of therapy

To use available information to influence prescribers and ensure patient-centred and cost-effective choice of therapy

To be aware of and adhere to Organisation and Partnership Corporate Governance commitments and contribute to the monitoring of safe, effective, and economic use of medicines in Mental Health and Substance Misuse in accordance with national and local guidelines, working with appropriate colleagues

To lead the development and review of LSW Organisation and Partnership medicines policies, protocols and guidelines for mental health and substance misuse based on evidence, national guidance and accepted best practice.

To lead on and participate in clinical audits, quality improvement projects and development and implementation of treatment protocols and guidelines for use of medicines within specialist area, using quality improvement skills and methodology where required and linked with local/regional QI groups/bodies.

To supervise clinical pharmacists undertaking post-graduate qualifications and to mentor other pharmacists and trainee pharmacists in mental health and substance misuse

To participate in clinical patient review with multidisciplinary teams, consultant ward rounds, clinical meetings, clinics and/or domiciliary settings as appropriate to provide medicines-related advice to prescribers and other health care professionals

To support the care of vulnerable mental health and substance misuse people with complex needs co-ordinating the medicines management aspects of their care, including undertaking complex medication reviews, assessments, prescribing and care planning.

To develop strategies to maximise medicines optimisation to allow patients to receive optimum benefits from their treatments, including person-centred approach.

To apply expert knowledge, work autonomously and take appropriate decisions within own competencies and areas of expertise including where there is paucity in the evidence base

To provide advice and support to health and social care professionals to ensure that service users get the best out of their medicines

To engage with patients and patient groups on medicine-related issues and empower them to take control of their medicines

To develop good working relationships and communication with clinical and managerial staff within mental health and substance misuse teams and provide a link regarding all aspects of the Pharmacy service within the organisation and the local health economy including the ICB, DPT, CPFT and UHP.

To develop good working relationships with Plymouth PCNs, and Community Pharmacies to promote best practice in medicines management in mental health and substance misuse.

To liaise with other pharmacists, services and organisations to ensure efficient transfer of clinical and medicines management information across interfaces.

To answer specialist medicines information (MI) enquiries directed to the post holder and assist in relevant MI enquiries taken by other members of the team

To develop personal practice research in accordance with Organisation and pharmacy strategy, including developing and supervising research, creating, and maintaining links with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to innovate and extend the boundaries of the profession in mental health and substance misuse, whilst supporting undergraduate year, masters and doctorate students as appropriate

To collaborate with HEIs to develop collaborative research programmes.

To maintain a portfolio of practice, for example, regularly submitting portfolio to RPS faculty

To support colleagues in developing evidence for practice, for example, supporting RPS faculty submission within specialist area.

To contribute to local, national and international specialist interest groups and conferences/meeting and relevant networks.

To lead on the delivery of the medicines priorities within mental health and substance misuse strategy for Plymouth.

To practice as a non-medical prescriber as appropriate and when registered with the GPhC and the Organisation to prescribe within the Organisations policy for non-medical prescribing. This may include ordering and interpreting diagnostic tests, prescribing, and monitoring therapy, recording and communicating interventions and action plans, all of which may need regular follow up and adjustment.

To provide teaching for the pharmacy and mental health and substance misuse staff as agreed within the organisation and partnerships, for example to other health care professionals within local health economy and to HEIs supporting education leads in the organisation and where appropriate, support post-graduate qualifications

To act as knowledge resource for medicines-related issues within the pharmacy and specialist teams and more widely as appropriate

To plan manage, monitor and review therapeutic programmes

To appropriately manage difficult and ambiguous problems, managing uncertainty, and to make decisions with limited information.

To demonstrate an intuitive grasp of situations based on deep tacit understanding

To demonstrate a whole-system patient-focused approach to medicines optimisation in mental health and substance misuse, establishing appropriate referral and communication mechanisms to ensure that patients and service users get the expertise and care that matches their medicines management needs.

To demonstrate advanced level of clinical reasoning and judgement.

Where appropriate, to provide clinical pharmacy cover for other pharmacy team members on a reciprocal basis.

To develop and monitor pharmacy initiatives such as medicines reconciliation on admission and provision of discharge summaries to GPs, which promote seamless transfer of patients from secondary care to primary care and vice versa.

To be responsible for the development of ward/unit based pharmaceutical care initiatives e.g., self-medication schemes, use of patients own drugs in hospital, one-stop dispensing, patient and carer counselling, discharge planning, assessing patient concordance and improved communication with primary care healthcare professionals within mental health.

Have highly developed skiIls for analysing drug, patient intimation in mental health in order to provide advice on medicines, dosages, production issues/ in areas where information is lacking, and medical or other opinion differs

Responding to and recording medicines information requests from prescribers and other healthcare professionals relating to mental health and providing advice on medicines proactively. In many cases this is a complex task involving highly specialist up to date knowledge, effective search strategies, evaluation of the evidence base and formulation of an appropriate response

To develop and maintain relevant robust medicines related policies, procedures and guidelines relating to mental health and substance misuse.

To provide advice and guidance on the development of PGDs and shared care agreements.

To investigate and respond to errors, complaints and incidents arising in area of responsibility in accordance with the organisations risk management and complaints policy and in liaison with the Medication Safety Officer.

To undertake the regular inspection of drug storage facilities, including controlled drugs (CDs), and advise nursing and medical staff on the legal control, safe custody, and security of drugs.

Develop, lead, and participate in clinical audit involving medicines, including national guideline and protocol requirements e.g., NICE Guidance

Monitor medicines expenditure including dispensing and distribution costs providing written analysis reports to the relevant clinical and business managers.

To participate in formulary development and review

Lead on novel pharmacy projects identify and undertake research to inform practice developments and underpin delivery of an effective, evidence-based pharmacy service.

To be familiar with and work in line with the national legislation governing the scope of practice for non-medical prescribers and organisational policy.

To work across traditional boundaries e.g. primary /secondary care and the ICS

To work with the Pharmacy Senior Management Team to
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B9832-2023-PH-312-2