A Primary Care Network (PCN) pharmacist works alongside a multidisciplinary diverse team of health care professionals in general practice and within the primary care network, providing primary support for prescription and medication queries.

As a PCN pharmacist you will take responsibility for medicines optimisation within the PCN, medicines reconciliation, the provision of expert advice on clinical medicines and the undertaking of structured clinical reviews with patients to proactively manage their complex polypharmacy needs.

You will work with all sectors of pharmacy in the wider OHP (Our Health Partnership) to improve reduce health inequalities across the PCN, instigate quality improvements and drive efficiency improvements at practice and PCN level.

Key responsibilities

• Work alongside and foster strong relationships with a multidisciplinary team across general practice to ensure the PCN is compliant with CQC standards.
• Review and make recommendations for the ongoing needs of patients facing long term conditions; ensuring they can get the best outcomes from their use of medicines.
• Implementing OHP systems to manage the use of medications with unplanned hospital admissions and with high-risk patient groups.
• To manage, reconcile and audit medicines at discharge from hospital, working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients get the medicines they need and that they are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for their care.
• Implement OHP systems to safely manage medicines for patients at high risk of harm and to manage product withdrawals for medicines identified in MHRA alerts.
• Auditing practice’s compliance against NICE technology and assessment guidance and making recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed or require shared care.
• Providing training and education to primary healthcare teams on medicine optimisation and therapeutic care. As well as providing specialist knowledge to support public health programmes available to the general public.
• Engage with Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) in the development of best practice.
• Comply with agreed safe working procedures, reporting of incidents and the respect of patient confidentiality. In addition, ensuring compliance of the Data Protection Act (1994), the General Data Protection Regulations (2018) and the Access to health Records Act (1990).

• Undergraduate degree in pharmacy
• Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council
• Personal professional indemnity insurance relevant to the role.
• Experience working as a clinical pharmacist
• Hold or be working towards an independent prescribing qualification.
• Ability to problem-solve and recognise deviations to normal patterns, referring to seniors or GPS when appropriate

Primary Care Pharmacy Career Pathway

CPPE is commissioned by Health Education England to deliver training to pharmacy professionals working in primary care as part of the primary care Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES). Read More.