Overview

This page is designed to provide an overview of your typical daily duties. Please note that there may be some site variations based on room availability, staffing levels, clinical meetings, and / or PLTs.

Daily Schedule

Regular Duties

1️⃣ EMIS Tasks and Queries

We must review and action medication-related queries from clinicians / non-clinical staff / patients via EMIS Workflow or shared NHS mail in a timely manner (< 48 hours)

The only exception should be if there is a valid reason for extending the completion of a task (e.g. a query that requires medicines management input or awaiting advice and guidance). Please ensure the patient as well as the source of the task is informed of this pending query.

Communicate any actions taken to call handlers, or clinicians to ensure continuity in our care.

2️⃣ Clinical Appointments

A standard pharmacist appointment is a 15 minutes slot for a medication review. The appointments will be face-to-face (F2F) in line with CQC requirements, unless there is a no capacity for a pharmacist on site in a clinical room to accommodate for F2F or unless the patient has requested a telephone consultation as more convenient.

• Long term conditions (LTCs) are the primary focus of medication reviews, including (but not limited to):
• 🍎Diabetes
• 📈Hypertension
• 🫁Asthma
• 💗Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)
• Consultations may also require your skills and knowledge to advise patients on self-care, holistic (lifestyle) advice, or skills such as seasonal immunisations or medication/disease monitoring.
• Consultations may also involve further signposting and referrals to specialist teams e.g. diabetes, mental health, respiratory, for advice and guidance or to local services (e.g. Pharmacy First Plus).
• All reviews and consultations with our patients must also address the 🗨️Pink Alert (QOF) Box, to ensure any patient unmet needs are met. We should also aim to address any actions listed in the current Medicines Optimisation Plan, where appropriate.
• 🖋️EMIS Clinical Templates should be used wherever possible.

For further guidance on medication reviews and long-term conditions - please see:

• 💊Pharmacy Handbook
• Local guidelines/CESEL: SEL IMOC - NHS South East London (selondonics.org)
• NICE: CKS | NICE

3️⃣ Clinical Letters

• Clinical letters include all written correspondence received from hospitals, specialists, or third parties that are involved in the patients care.
• Clinical letters can be found via EMIS (EMIS Workflow Manager → Documents, or Tasks) or in the 📧Generic Surgery Inbox. There may also be letters on the patient’s local record which have not yet been received by the practice/admin team.
• Letters have been assigned by the admin team as documents or tasks to the in-house pharmacy team. They include information about the patients medication and therefore must be reviewed and actioned.
• When reviewing the letter/discharge summary, please check what medication changes there have been and action appropriately, including notifying the patient of any adjustments.
• The pharmacy support team will also review these documents and may request guidance from the practice pharmacist to review actions and medication changes.

See 📥Processing Medication Letters for more information.

4️⃣ Clinical Duties

• Supporting drug monitoring, in line with SEL protocols / NICE / BNF.
• Work with local medicines management teams / ICB to action annual Medicines Optimisation Plan (MOP). This ensures appropriate, safe and cost-effective prescribing across the practice.
• Complete any quality-improvement projects as instructed in the current MOP, ensuring actions are achieved and submitted to the medicines management team by the 31st of March annually.
• Perform drug safety audits to monitor prescribing (as per local policies and SEL formulary).
• Attend clinical meetings within practice, monthly pharmacy meetings and local medicines management/optimisation meetings when arranged with the local teams.
• Communicate with local pharmacies, clinicians and patients as necessary for advice or to address any concerns.
• Dealing with national drug shortages/alerts and supporting the pharmacy technicians to alert patients and understand what actions need to be taken following reports/searches on EMIS.