Pharmacy Support Worker - Wakefield, United Kingdom - The Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust

Description

Job Summary

We have an exciting opportunity at Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust for a Pharmacy Support Worker (Higher Level) to come and join us, working alongside our ward based, clinical Pharmacy teams. The successful candidate must hold an NVQ Level 2 certificatein Pharmacy Services or equivalent and have experience of working in a pharmacy environment, either community based or NHS. You will need to be committed, self-motivated and passionate about patient care. You will have exceptional attention to detail, be able to prioritize the daily workload effectively, along with excellent organizational and communication skills. The Pharmacy department provides a progressive Pharmacy service making it a highly rewarding working environment. We are a friendly team, who will support the successful candidate with their introduction into this role, and with their future professional development.

The main duties of the job include:

• Talking to patients to assess that any of their own medication they may have brought with them is safe and suitable for use and record this on the electronic medicines prescribing system.
• Make sure that the patient has a supply of medication available on the ward to use whilst admitted for treatment, to avoid missed doses, by ordering medicines using the electronic prescribing system.
• Liaising with other members of pharmacy and ward staff, at all levels, in order to contribute to the effective running of the service.
• Dispense prescriptions for patients to take home at ward level to support a timely discharge and assist the Pharmacy team in counseling patients on new medications provided.
• Transfer medication between wards as required.
• Support nursing staff with medication orders and queries.
• Support the training and development of Pharmacy Support Workers, Trainee Technicians, Pharmacy Technicians, Trainee and Foundation Pharmacists.

The Pharmacy Department operates a 7-day service throughout the year and as part of the role you will be expected to participate in the weekend and Bank Holiday rotas. The role will also involve some cross-site working and late nights.

About Us

We provide care and support to over a million people in Wakefield and Kirklees in their homes, community settings and across our three hospital sites at Pontefract, Dewsbury and Pinderfields (Wakefield). Always striving for excellence, we are at the forefront of innovation and research, and we invest in teaching and the development of our workforce. We live by our values of caring, improving, being respectful and maintaining high standards. We listen and learn because we aim to make Mid Yorkshire the best place to work and receive care.

We value diversity and welcome talent and enthusiasm irrespective of age, disability, neurodivergence, sex, gender identity and gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances including providing unpaid carers support to someone with a health and care need. As ethnic minority groups, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people with a disability/neurodivergence are currently under-represented across the organization, we encourage applications from members of these groups. We have policies and procedures to ensure all applicants are treated fairly and consistently. We are proud of our staff networks - who offer valuable guidance and feedback from those with lived experience.

We have a clear vision and you could be part of this If you share our values and you want to make a difference to the lives of our patients and their families and carers, we would love to hear from you.

Job Description Job responsibilities:

• Print ward lists and handover sheets to Identify new patients admitted since the previous pharmacy visit.
• Requesting and recording consent from the patient to refer if needed to the discharge medicine service and trust pharmacy community-based service.
• Transfer medicines, between wards if patients have been transferred without them. This will include medicines dispensed by the hospital pharmacy as well as patients own drugs (PODs) and patients own controlled drugs.
• Support the ward pharmacists and technicians to record accurate medication histories by:
• Ascertaining if the patient has brought supplies of their medicines from home.
• Ascertaining and documenting how the patient has their medications supplied, eg: compliance aids.
• Ascertaining and documenting if the patient has been admitted from a care home.
• Ensure patients have enough medicines available to avoid missed doses by:
• Assessing PODs as suitable for use in the hospital according to standard operating procedures.
• Contacting relatives or carers with patient consent, to bring in the patient's PODs into the hospital if necessary.
• Screening prescription charts to identify missed doses, new items prescribed and any changes to medicines, and requesting a supply from pharmacy if required.
• Liaising with ward staff to identify any additional stock medicines that they require.
• Identify patients who have been prescribed new medicines and counsel on side effects, dose, frequency, food interactions etc, using the relevant systems/training available to support with this.
• Support clinical areas to maintain safe and secure handling of medicines by:
• Ensuring that all medicines for individual patients are stored correctly in the bedside locker, or elsewhere on the ward according to the standards within the Trust Medicines Charter.
• Delivering patient labelled medicines to individual bedside lockers.
• Participate in pharmacy-led audits as required.
• Report any incidents of inappropriate storage and handling of medicines to the appropriate person.
• Ensure that information collected is communicated to the relevant pharmacist or technician in a timely manner.
• Minimize medicines waste by managing medicines returns from clinical areas according to standard operating procedures.
• Dispense medicines for in-patients (including discharges) following guidelines, under the supervision of the Pharmacy Technician or Pharmacist, with the final check by a Checking Technician or Pharmacist.
• Ensure that all information needed for accurate stock control and prescription issues data is recorded using both paper systems and the computerized Pharmacy Information System (PIS).
• Liaise with appropriate staff member about urgently required medicines and inform patients, and other health care staff about supply problems / delays.
• Dispense specialist hospital-only medicines and unlicensed medicines which require accurate, detailed records.
• Dispense oral chemotherapy medicines taking necessary precautions detailed in SOPs.
• Dispense controlled drugs and ensure that all legally required records are accurate and up to date.

Please refer to the attached job description for the comprehensive list of duties.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Experience in a Pharmacy dispensary (NHS or Retail sector).
• Experience dealing with patients/customers in a busy environment.

Desirable

• Previous NHS experience.
• Experience counseling patients/customers on the side effects, dosage etc of their medicines.
• Experience dealing with other healthcare professionals.

Qualifications

Essential

• NVQ2 in Pharmacy Services or equivalent (This training is required of all Pharmacy support staff by the Pharmaceutical Society).
• Reasonable Standard of Education particularly in Maths, English and Science.