Job overview

Although this position is a 12 months fixed-term contract, the actual contract duration will be adjusted to account for the time taken to advertise the post, complete the hiring process, and finalise pre-employment checks. This means the contract will begin when the candidate starts the role and may be slightly shorter than 12 months. 

Candidate to join our busy and dynamic pharmacy team at Newham University Hospital in the position of Senior Pharmacy Assistant. You will support the operational and clinical pharmacy team to ensure provision of an efficient, economic, and timely dispensary and distribution service allowing for delivery of quality care to patients at ward and dispensary level.

This post will be rotational throughout various areas on site including inpatient dispensary, stores, and on wards. There will be opportunities to create strong working relationships with members of the pharmacy team as well as working closely with nurses and other healthcare professionals including supporting with maintenance of effective stock control and promoting adherence to safe and secure handling of medicines.

The successful candidate will join a supportive, integrated pharmacy team, committed to delivering high quality patient care. You will have opportunities to gain new skills including good medicines management practice, working within pharmacy stores, inpatient dispensary and rotations through a variety of different clinical specialties.

Main duties of the job

• To work with the stores, distribution & procurement teams across site  to maintain an effective supply chain.

• To support the department in setting standards through review and updating procedures and auditing against those standards in line with the department’s audit programme.

• Be accredited to dispense and deal with Controlled Drugs, blister packs, in-patient supply and medicines for discharge.

• Be familiar with using CMM and ePMA and the Oncology prescribing system, iQemo.

•  Complete daily and monthly stock counts for dispensing areas, with appropriate management of discrepancies (including escalation), where necessary.

• Assist with filing prescriptions, maintaining accurate records for future reference.

•  Participate in temperature monitoring  for  fridges & freezers ensuring they are in range  and report any problems.

• Ensure medicines are recycled and reused where possible and wasted and expired stock are booked out and logged appropriately.

• Provide medicines management support for ward areas including returning of stock/patient’s own medications, expiry date checks and recording of ambient and fridge temperatures in clinical areas.
•  Partake in delivery of checked medications to the ward in a timely fashion and place in individual patient’s bedside lockers/fridge.
•  Participate in the receipt and checking of goods from different suppliers and booking in the deliveries on the pharmacy computer system if necessary

Working for our organisation

Barts Health is one of the largest NHS trusts in the country, and one of Britain’s leading healthcare providers.  

The Barts Health group of NHS hospitals is entering an exciting new era on our improvement journey to becoming an outstanding organisation with a world-class clinical reputation. Having lifted ourselves out of special measures, we now have the impetus and breathing space to chart a fresh course in which we are continually striving to improve all our services for patients.  

Our vision is to be a high-performing group of NHS hospitals, renowned for excellence and innovation, and providing safe and compassionate care to our patients in east London and beyond. That means being a provider of excellent patient safety, known for delivering consistently high standards of harm-free care and always caring for patients in the right place at the right time. It also means being an outstanding place to work, in which our WeCare values and behaviours are visible to all and guide us in how we work together.  

We strive to live by our WeCare values and are committed to promoting inclusion, where every staff member has a sense of belonging. We value our differences and fully advocate, cultivate and support an inclusive working environment.