About the Role

Mount Farm Surgery is looking to welcome a qualified and experienced clinical pharmacist into our busy practice, to play a full and active role within our multi-disciplinary team. The role is offered on a full-time basis, Monday-Friday.

The main responsibilities of the role include:

Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using their expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas
Be a prescriber, or completing training to become a prescriber, and work with and alongside the general practice team
Be involved in the care management of patients with chronic diseases and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially the elderly, people in care homes, those with multiple co-morbidities (in particular frailty, COPD and asthma) and people with learning disabilities or autism (through STOMP – Stop Over Medication Programme)
Provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients at the organisation and to help in tackling inequalities
Provide leadership on person-centred medicines optimisation (including ensuring prescribers in the practice conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial stewardship guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services
Through structured medication reviews, support patients to take their medications to get the best from them, reduce waste and promote self-care
Have a leadership role in supporting further integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help to improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help to manage general practice workload
Develop relationships and work closely with other pharmacy professionals across the wider health and social care system
Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols, liaison with specialist pharmacists (including mental health and reduction of inappropriate antipsychotic use in people with learning difficulties), liaison with community pharmacists, and anticoagulation
Act as the point of contact for medicine related matters, establishing positive working relationships
Consult patients within defined levels of competence and independently prescribe acute and repeat medication
Receive referrals and directed patients from triage services and other clinicians
Receive and resolve medicines queries from patients and other staff
Provide medication review services for patients in the practice and during domiciliary visits to the local care homes if required
Manage a caseload of complex patients
Manage a therapeutic drug monitoring system and the recall of patients taking high risk drugs, i.e., anticoagulants, anticonvulsants and DMARDs, etc.
Deliver long term condition clinics and home visits, particularly for patients with complicated medication regimes, and prescribe accordingly
Provide pharmaceutical consultations to patients with long term conditions as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team
Review medications for newly registered patients
Improve patient and carer understanding of confidence in and compliance with their medication
Maintain accurate clinical records in conjunction with extant legislation
Encourage cost-effective prescribing throughout the organisation
Implement and embed a robust repeat prescribing system
Provide advice and answer medication related queries from patients and staff
Organise and oversee the organisation’s medicines optimisation systems, including the repeat prescribing and medication review systems
Improve the quality and effectiveness of prescribing through clinical audit and education, to improve performance against NICE standards and clinical and prescribing guidance
Develop yourself and the role through participation in clinical supervision, training and service redesign activities
Ensure appropriate supervision of safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs. Apply infection-control measures within the practice according to local and national guidelines
Provide subject matter expertise on medication monitoring, implementing and embedding a system
Actively signpost patients to the correct healthcare professional
Manage a caseload of complex patients and potential care institutions and to provide advice for the GP management of more complex patients or areas such as addictive behaviours, severe mental illness or end of life care
Review the latest guidance, ensuring the organisation conforms to NICE, CQC etc.
Be aware of duties and responsibilities regarding current legislation and adhere to practice policies and procedures on Safeguarding Adults and Safeguarding Children
Provide targeted support and proactive reviews for vulnerable, complex patients and those at risk of admission and re-admission to secondary care
Handle prescription queries and requests directly
Provide proactive leadership on medicines and prescribing systems to the organisation, patients and their carers
Support in the delivery of enhanced services and other service requirements on behalf of the organisation
Participate in the management of patient complaints when requested to do so, and participate in the identification of any necessary learning brought about through clinical incidents and near-miss events
Undertake all mandatory training and induction programmes
Contribute to and embrace the spectrum of clinical governance
Attend a formal appraisal with your manager at least every 12 months. Once a performance/training objective has been set, progress will be reviewed on a regular basis so that new objectives can be agreed
Contribute to public health campaigns (e.g., COVID-19 or flu clinics) through advice or direct care
Maintain a clean, tidy, effective working area at all times

There may be, on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks, this will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels

About the Candidate

You will be a qualified pharmacist with strong experience within primary care and have the following skills and qualifications:

Completion of a degree in pharmacy and registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council;
Post-qualification experience in pharmacy (hospital, primary care or community), or working towards obtaining this;
Qualified independent prescriber, or working towards this;
Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS);
Awareness of the breadth of common acute and long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice;
Ability to demonstrate general pharmaceutical skills and knowledge in core areas;
Ability to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general care plans for patients with long-term conditions;
Ability to demonstrate accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision as an individuals;
Ability to recognise priorities when problem-solving and identify deviations from normal patterns, referring to seniors or GPs with confidence, when appropriate;
Ability to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies, procedures and codes of conduct;
Ability to assist patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidance;
Non-judgemental attitude and ability to be flexible and adaptable;
Self-motivated with excellent communication skills;
Understand the need for patient confidentiality.

About Us

Mount Farm Surgery is a modern, efficient, and well-equipped GP surgery in the Moreton Hall area of Bury St. Edmunds.
First established in Looms Lane in Bury St. Edmunds, we moved to the Moreton Hall Estate approximately thirty years ago, which was built on the original Moreton Hall farmland at the top of Mount Road (hence the name ‘Mount Farm’). The practice currently has just over 16,000 registered patients.

Proactive and holistic care
We endeavour to offer proactive care to ensure the best of health for our patients. Often health issues are related to other aspects of a patient’s lifestyle, and we believe in helping patients improve their overall health and well-being, wherever possible taking the opportunity to prevent illness and not just treat it.

We routinely check up on patients with long-term conditions to ensure we are providing effective care. We also run a series of clinics and patient workshops that provide valuable help and support to those dealing with long-term conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

A GP training practice
Some of our GPs have the additional skills, experience, and qualifications to support qualified registrars through their vocational training to become a GP. This also ensures that our own services are in line with the latest medical knowledge and practices.

Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board
Mount Farm Surgery is a member practice of the Suffolk & North East Essex ICB, which is committed to the ongoing improvement of local services through working with West Suffolk Hospital, community services in Suffolk and the Suffolk Mental Health Partnership Trust.

Suffolk GP Federation
We are members of the Suffolk GP Federation, a not-for-profit federation of 61 independent GP practices covering 540,000 patients. The federation promotes collaboration to improve services for patients, share best practice, and address issues that cannot easily be resolved by individual practices.

Bury St Edmunds Primary Care Network (PCN)

In July 2019 a local primary care network (PCN) was formed between Angel Hill Surgery, Guildhall & Barrow Surgery, Mount Farm Surgery, Swan Surgery and Victoria Surgery serving our combined 65,000 patients in Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding villages. We have a Clinical Director who leads us in having a real impact on the shape of primary care in our local area. Part of this is through better collaboration as we are able to employ more specialist clinical staff that a single practice could not do.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

Please note this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

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