Job overview

We are looking for an enthusiastic pharmacist with a strong background in clinical pharmacy, quality improvement & innovation to lead our medicines safety & governance agenda across the Trust. Interest and applications from experienced and forward-looking pharmacists, passionate about medicines optimisation & medicines safety, who are seeking a leadership role are welcome.

The successful candidate will be the dedicated Medicines Safety Officer, demonstrating collaborative working with the Patient Safety team, and developing strong links with both system & regional MSO networks. You will represent Pharmacy at Trust wide patient safety meetings, being an advocate for continuing the Trusts commitment to the third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm. You will support Trustwide medicines governance, quality improvement & practice based research.

Close working with clinical pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nursing & medical staff, in both inpatient & community settings across the Trust is expected, and there will be a proportional clinical commitment, which can include prescribing.

You will be an integral member of the senior pharmacy team, supporting the Chief Pharmacist to set the strategic direction of both medicines optimisation in the organisation, and the pharmacy services.

You may be based at any Trust site within the geography of the organisation, & some home working is possible. The role includes on-call and some weekend and bank holiday working.

Main duties of the job

Deliver, manage and develop on the medication safety, medicines governance and pharmacy research and development agendas, including the Medicines Safety Officer role for the Trust.

Promote and ensure the safe use of medicines across the Trust, and be the main expert and advocate in this area.

Promote, undertake and lead on pharmacy led research and development, including the lead for clinical trials.

Be responsible for the monitoring systems of medication incident reporting in the Trust, and work with multidisciplinary teams to improve the reporting, learning and reduction in avoidable harm from medicines use across the Trust.

Provide pharmacy leadership, and support to the wider Trust, to deliver a medicines safety work plan promoting high quality and effective medicines safety.

Develop education and training materials, including reports relating to medicines safety and governance in the Trust. Support clinical colleagues in the undertaking of quality improvement work using established methods to sustain robust medicines safety.

Be responsible for developing, reviewing and implementing key medicines policies, procedures and governance plans for the Trust.

Contribute to the wider medicines optimisation agenda across the Trust through the focus on medicines safety, research and development, and provision of expert clinical advice.

Work closely with the Trust’s Patient Safety team to ensure a consistent approach to governance and risk.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.  We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset. Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experienc, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.