Job overview

We are seeking an experienced and highly motivated Advanced Pharmacist – Palliative Care to join our team, working across East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) and Pilgrims Hospices in East Kent (Canterbury, Thanet, and Ashford).

This is a unique and rewarding opportunity to lead and develop a highly specialised clinical pharmacy service for patients receiving palliative and end of life care. The postholder will work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams to ensure safe, effective, and compassionate use of medicines that optimise symptom control, pain management, and quality of life for patients and their families.

You will play a key role in the ongoing development of medicines management and governance processes, contribute to policy and guideline development, and support the education and training of staff across hospice, hospital, and community settings.

We’ve got a really exciting opportunity for a pharmacist to join our hospice team while we cover a maternity leave. It’s a great chance to build your experience as a Senior Pharmacist, while working in palliative and end-of-life care. You will have the opportunity to work closely with a supportive and caring team who respect pharmacy input as part of a wider MDT approach to patient care.

If you do not yet meet the full Band 8a requirements, a Band 7 appointment may be considered depending on your experience

Main duties of the job

• Provide a specialist clinical pharmacy service to Pilgrims Hospices, supporting safe and effective use of medicines in palliative and end of life care.

• Work closely with hospice, hospital and community teams to optimise symptom control, pain management and overall quality of care for patients.

• Offer expert pharmaceutical advice to medical, nursing and pharmacy staff, ensuring compliance with legislation and best practice.

• Lead on the development, review and implementation of palliative care-related medicines policies, guidelines and audits across Pilgrims Hospices and EKHUFT.

• Support education and training for hospice, community and hospital staff on medicines use in palliative and end of life care.

• Monitor drug expenditure and promote cost-effective prescribing in collaboration with finance and medicines management teams.

• Contribute to medicines governance, including incident reviews, quality improvement initiatives and service development.

• Represent pharmacy at relevant meetings and committees, and act as a key link between EKHUFT and Pilgrims Hospices.

Working for our organisation

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference’. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Please note that if you require a Certificate of Sponsorship to work in the UK you must declare this on your application form, even if you currently have a certificate of sponsorship or a work permit for another role and are already working in the country. Please note we are only able to sponsor candidates on a Skilled Worker Visa applying for roles Band 5 and above.