Job summary
- Main area
- Pharmacy
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 367-CORP-9600
- Employer
- Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Kingfisher Court, Kingsley Green, Radlett, Hertfordshire. WD7 9FB
- Town
- Radlett
- Salary
- £57,888 - £64,880 per annum, pro rata (5% HCAS Included)
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 17/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Principal Clinical Pharmacist Mental Health - Division Lead
Band 8a
Values Based Screener
At Hertfordshire Partnership Foundation Trust we are looking for people to join us who share our values and those of the NHS. Before your application can be considered please take part on our online values questionnaire, which you can find below. When you have finished you will be sent a 'completion code' by email, which will be valid for 6 months and required to submit your application form.
http://hpft.recruitforvalues.co
Job overview
We are seeking an experienced clinical pharmacist who is interested in leading and developing an effective medicines optimisation service to the specialist services division within this outstanding Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Trust. This role focuses on older peoples' services.
The post is offered as a full time, permanent contract and would appeal to an experienced clinical pharmacist (mental health/learning disabilities experience is desirable but not essential) who is ambitious and would like to develop their leadership and service development skills in a supportive environment
The post holder must possess excellent communication skills (both written and verbal), have strong clinical and organisational skills and be able to effect change. The primary role of the post holder will be to lead and develop the medicines optimisation agenda for one or more divisions within the Trust.
The candidate will be supported to work across the local health economy and undertake research in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire. There is plenty of scope and opportunity within the role, if desired, to develop a portfolio of practice for credentialling against advanced and consultant level frameworks.
The post holder must have current registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council and postgraduate qualifications in Clinical Pharmacy and/or Psychiatric Therapeutics (or equivalent experience).
Main duties of the job
The successful applicant will:
- work in collaboration with clinical teams as part of a multi-disciplinary approach to address the medicines related needs of our service users.
- ensure safe and effective medicines management processes within the service. This will include compliance with regulatory medicines management standards and implementation of medicines safety alerts.
- support the Chief Pharmacist in developing and implementing the Trust Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation strategy.
- work across the local health economy to ensure smooth transitions of care.
- be encouraged to undertake relevant research.
In return, we can offer you:
- leadership and management training opportunities
- 5% on top of basic salary high cost allowance supplement (subject to a minimum and a maximum payment pro rata)
- 27 days holiday rising to 33 days (depending on NHS Trust service) plus bank holidays (pro rata where applicable)
- One of the UK's best pension schemes
- Free Pilates lessons
- Comprehensive health and wellbeing services
- Special leave for family and personal reasons
- NHS Car Lease Scheme
- Employee Assistance Programme
Our staff survey results tell a story of highly engaged, motivated, passionate people working at HPFT. The survey has shown that staff overwhelmingly believe that their role makes a difference to service users, to the extent that HPFT had the best score nationally for this question.
Working for our organisation
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust is one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of ‘Outstanding’ from the Care Quality Commission
Our family of over 4,000 members of staff provide health and social care for people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. Everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout:
Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- To work with the Chief Pharmacist and a team of clinical pharmacists and technicians to provide and support the integrated delivery of pharmaceutical care initiatives to patients with mental and physical health needs and learning disabilities in identified areas of HPFT to ensure safe, appropriate and cost-effective use of medicines.
- To provide highly specialist pharmaceutical advice concerning the care and treatment of service users in Mental Health (including Forensics) and Learning Disabilities Services and to promote safe, effective and evidence based cost effective use of medicines within the Trust.
- To actively lead the provision and development of pharmaceutical services to a specific division.
- To provide highly specific advice to clinical team members on the management of complex medicines related issues, such as complex drug interactions, medicines use in pregnancy, unlicensed/off-label use of medicines etc.
- To provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where developed persuasive, motivational, negotiating, training, empathetic or re-assurance skills are required. This may be because agreement or co-operation is required or because there are barriers to understanding. This may also involve presenting complex, sensitive or contentious information to a large group of staff, service users or carers.
- To work as part of a multidisciplinary team to provide clinical pharmaceutical support to designated areas in order to maximise benefits and minimise risk to service users. This will include medicines reconciliation, prescription review, medication reviews, identification and management of drug interactions and adverse effects, advice on clinical monitoring, medicines information, advising on supply problems, compliance with legislation, compliance with Trust policies and guidelines and participation in multidisciplinary team meetings where appropriate.
- To support the pharmacy service for clinical trials.
For a more detailed description, please see attached job description and person specification.
Person specification
QUALIFICATIONS/EDUCATION/TRAINING
Essential criteria
- BPharm / MPharm / BSc Pharmacy
- Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
- Postgraduate clinical pharmacy certificate/ diploma or equivalent experience.
- Demonstrates own CPD record/ or documented CPD
Desirable criteria
- Registration with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS)
- Postgraduate Certificate/diploma in Psychiatric Therapeutics or equivalent experience
- Postgraduate diploma in Advanced Clinical Practice
- Leadership or Management Qualification
- Non-medical prescriber (or working towards)
- Member of the RPS Education and Standards Committee
EXPERIENCE
Essential criteria
- Experience of working in a secondary care setting, (demonstrable post qualification hospital pharmacy practice)
- Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team
- Evidence of involvement in clinical pharmacy provision and in operational management
- Writing and reviewing of policies, guidelines, and procedures
- Documented evidence of completed audit work and research practice
- Good, broad clinical knowledge and ability to apply to a ward, community and dispensary setting
- Experience in managing workload
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working as a member of a multidisciplinary team in mental health and learning disabilities
- Evidence of education, training, performance management and development of staff
- Good management skills - including recruitment, supervision, and appraisals
- Experience showing leadership skills or equivalent
- Managing quality and cost effectiveness initiatives
- Experience in incident analysis and investigation
- Awareness of current issues facing the NHS
- Experience of project management
- Experience of carrying out clinical supervision
- Experience of chairing committees
SKILLS / COMMUNICATION
Essential criteria
- Advanced IT skills and comprehensive use of Microsoft office including power point and excel
- An ability to organise and prioritise own workload and that of others
- An ability to lead, inspire and motivate a team
- Engaging, compassionate and caring communication skills when dealing with patients/family/carers on complex/sensitive issues
- Experience of delivering training to staff
- Highly developed physical skills in dispensing, preparing, and checking of medicines involving a high level of accuracy.
- English language competency sufficient to communicate effectively with all staff and deliver education sessions in an appropriate form
- Advanced computer, keyboard and mouse skills
- Good interpersonal skills
- Confident, able to influence and assertive when dealing with other professionals.
- Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
- Team player with leadership skills
- Able to prioritise and meet deadlines
- Demonstrates empathy towards client groups
- Shows initiative and has well-developed problemsolving skills
- Demonstrates attention to detail, accuracy, and numeracy skills
Desirable criteria
- Ability to analyse highly complex information, both clinical, financial, and managerial
KNOWLEDGE
Essential criteria
- Advanced theoretical and technical, clinical and pharmaceutical knowledge relating to the promotion of high quality, effective and cost-efficient use of medicines, including a wide range of work procedures and practices
- An awareness of NHS Plan, and clinical governance priorities
- Good knowledge of all medicines legislation relating to the supply and storage of medicines
ABILITY
Essential criteria
- Able to deal with conflicting demands on workload and frequent interruptions
- Ability to work under pressure
- Able to influence other professionals
- Able to communicate with service users
- Able to impart complex information in a manner understandable to junior staff and students.
ANALYTICAL SKILLS
Essential criteria
- Able to make judgements involving complex facts or situations which require analysis, interpretation, and comparison of a range of options
- Able to critically appraise clinical trial data and research papers.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Denusha Kuganathan
- Job title
- Lead Pharmacist for EPMA and Digital Solutions
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07766736856
- Additional information
Lesley Bodell, Principal Clinical Pharmacist on 07815025267 or [email protected]
List jobs with Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Health Science Services or all sectors