Specialist Pharmacist - Care of the Elderly | Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

This post supports theLead Pharmacist for Care of the Elderly in the provision of a clinical pharmacy service to care of the elderly wards at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, West Cornwall Hospital, Community hospitals in Cornwall, as well as specialist provision of end of life care at the hospices. The care of the Elderly Pharmacist work alongside other members of the multidisciplinary team, including consultants, junior doctors and a range of specialist nurses, specialist pharmacists, junior pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to provide a robust clinical service.

· Providing a core clinical pharmacy service to Care of the Elderly inpatients in line with the Trust's clinical pharmacy standards.

· Ensuring high quality, patient centred, and cost effective pharmaceutical care is provided for the patients from admission, during the inpatient stay and right through to the successful discharge from hospital. This includes the transfer of key information on to the patient's primary care providers when appropriate.

· Providing a clinical pharmacy service to community hospitals as defined by our service level agreements with Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust.

· Providing a clinical pharmacy service to hospices as defined by our service level agreements

· Actively providing medicines information and medication counselling to health care professionals, patients and/or carers.

· Working with multiprofessional teams across the care of the elderly speciality to produce, and review, medication guidelines that promote rational, economical and evidence based prescribing; with appropriate monitoring practice to ensure policies and guidelines are adhered to., · Working with relevant staff to participate in nationally required, and clinically appropriate, audits, research and risk management strategies.

· Support the lead pharmacists with drug budget management with the provision of evaluated medicine expenditure information to designated managers and clinicians within care of the elderly. Give specific advice on measures to control expenditure within best practice. Participate in cost-savings initiatives.

· Assist in the development and implementation of systems for care of the elderly prescribing management/deprescribing and prudent drug use within the Trust, to ensure the safe, economic and clinically effective use of medications in all patients in line with local and national initiatives.

· Attending and contributing to clinical governance and finance, divisional and speciality meetings.

· Working with relevant staff to reduce risks in medicine prescribing, storage & administration. Provide advice where required. Ensure statutory ward drug stock checks are carried out. Ensuring legal requirements are met. Reporting of clinical incidents and responding to drug errors by helping to review practice and decrease risks.

· Completion of non-medical prescribing qualification and using this in daily practice to enhance the optimisation of patient's medicines and enhance the discharge planning process.

· Supervise and train junior staff. Be a role model and mentor.

· Providing cross team cover for annual leave, sickness and training.

· Participation in general medicines optimisation activities, not otherwise specifically listed.

· Overseeing the supply of inpatient and day-case medicines in conjunction with pharmacy staff. This includes sourcing unlicensed, imported and investigational medicines, ensuring relevant documentation is completed to comply with the RCHT unlicensed medicines policy.

· Carry out clinical audit and quality improvement projects within your assigned speciality.

· Providing clinical advice and support to the dispensary on a planned sessional basis.

· Participation in dispensary, early/late duty rotas, oncall services, weekend and bank holiday rotas.

· Promote good stewardship of antimicrobials, to become an antimicrobial guardian to reduce hospital acquired infections and stop the development of resistance.

· Demonstrate an awareness of and commitment to Trust values and the pharmacy vision for the future.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) is the main provider of acute and specialist care services in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We serve a population of around 500,000 people - a figure that can increase significantly with

visitors during the busiest times of the year. We employ approximately 6,700 staff and have a budget of approximately £580 million.

We are a teaching hospital in partnership with the University of Exeter Medical School, University of Plymouth School of Nursing and Midwifery, and Peninsula Dental School.

The Knowledge Spa on the Royal Cornwall Hospital site is the base for medical and nursing as well as ongoing education for health professions in clinical and non-clinical roles.

Keeping at the forefront of medical advances, we are continually developing our clinical services as well as our facilities and are committed to maximising the range of specialist care that can be offered locally. Allied to this is a growing reputation for research and innovation.