Clinical pharmacists work in general practice as part of a multidisciplinary team in a patient-facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas. They will be prescribers, or if not, can complete an independent prescribing qualification following completion of the 18 month CPPE pathway. They work with and alongside the general practice team, taking responsibility for patients with chronic diseases and undertaking clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex polypharmacy, especially for the elderly, people in care homes and those with multiple comorbidities.
100% of actual salary plus defined on-costs, up to the maximum reimbursable amount of £65,838 over 12 months.
This video has been created by NHS East of England
Clinical pharmacists work as part of the general practice team to improve value and outcomes from medicines and consult with and treat patients directly. This includes providing extra help to manage long-term conditions, advice for those on multiple medicines and better access to health checks. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and ensuring patient safety.
Provide expertise in practical therapeutics
Develop bespoke integrated pharmaceutical care plans for individual patients
Facilitate communication and liaise across a patient’s care pathway (including wider primary care workforce, secondary care, social care and domiciliary)
Manage patients with more complex long-term conditions such as "difficult" hypertension, compliance with lipid-lowering therapy
Increase the uptake of new medicines with a focus on overall value
Offer a holistic approach to the use and understanding of medicines by patients that includes step up and step-down management required in long term conditions or possibly end of life
Facilitate access to medicines (e.g. secondary care referrals for "specials", unusual formulations etc)
Support innovation and clinical research
The CPPE assessment is made up of several different methods of competency assessment with multiple evidence points to ensure that the learner has gained knowledge, skills and behavioural insight including:
Fundamentals of working with GPs
Consultation skills
Care-based discussion
Multi-source feedback
Clinical examination and procedural skills
Reflection on patient feedback
This ensures the Pharmacist is competent in the below duties:
Medicines management.
Taking over clinical medicines reviews from GPs.
Being the point of contact for all medicine-related queries.
Helping the practice deliver on the patients recently discharged from hospital.
Prescription management.
Managing and prescribing for long-term conditions (often with the practice nurse)
Triaging and managing common ailments.
Working with GPs and patients to address medicine adherence.
Reviewing patients on complex medicine regimens.
Responding to acute medicine requests.
Holding minor ailment clinics.
Dealing with medication for patients recently discharged from hospital.
Helping the practice deliver on the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) and Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) agenda and enhanced services.
Delivering repeat prescription reviews.
Overseeing the practice’s repeat prescription policy.
Audit and education.
In dispensing practices, pharmacists can take responsibility for the business management of the dispensary.
HEE Training Offers
Working with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, NHS England and NHS Improvement, and other partners, we are offering fully-funded, innovative training and development opportunities for pharmacists and trainee foundation pharmacists. Click here to learn more about these offers.
Please note: Contracts for the provision of IP courses will expire at the end of March 2022. HEE is starting the process to commission providers for future provision, alongside commissioning for the Pharmacy Integration Programme (PhIP), which began recently with an invitation to HEIs to an online meeting on future commissioning.
Delivery under these contracts is expected to start in September 2022. This means there will be a short gap in availability in between April and September. In previous years, there have been very low numbers during this period, and we hope that students can be reassured that the planned courses will commence in the Autumn for application towards the end of the Summer.
e-Learning for Healthcare
The following resources can be accessed via e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH). E-LfH provides free e-learning programmes which can support you in your professional development.
If you do not already have an account, click here to register using your NHS email address. If you already have an account, please use the same link to firstly log in to access the following resources.
The below resource banks & training paths have been developed to support Pharmacy staff across a variety of roles. Elements of these will be relevant to your current role whilst other elements may support in your future development.
GPhC Resources: This programme provides an overview of useful resources for pre-registration pharmacist tutors and their trainees.
Clinical Pharmacology and Prescribing: This programme is designed to support medical students (and students of other healthcare professions) to develop a firm grounding in the principles of clinical pharmacology, which underpin safe and effective prescribing in the NHS.
New Fit Note: From 1st July 2022, new legislation came into force which allows nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists, and physiotherapists to legally certify fit notes, in addition to doctors. To support this, the government has published some guidance. It is recommended that colleagues also complete the Work for Health Programme first which provides a general introduction to this area.
The below resources are designed to support Clinical Pharmacists in the development of their audit, research and education skills:
The below resources demonstrate this role in relation to the care network:
Clinical pharmacists in primary care: This session provides an overview of the role of the clinical pharmacist in general practice, including looking at how the role has developed and its part in primary care networks.
Learning Resources for Pharmacy Roles: The aim of this document is to help you plan the skills, education and training support needs for you and/or your workforce.
This list is not exhaustive and the programmes available are regularly updated, so we recommend visiting the e-LfH portal and reviewing the available resources via using the “View full catalogue” function, or the “Search the e-learning" function.
The PCPEP is for pharmacists employed as part of the NHS England Primary Care Network (PCN) Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) additional roles reimbursement scheme.
• The PCN DES says that all Clinical Pharmacists will be part of a professional clinical network and will always be clinically supervised by a senior Clinical Pharmacist and GP clinical supervisor
• The clinical supervisor for pharmacists will usually be a GP but if the pharmacist works in a care home, the clinical supervisor could be a consultant geriatrician. Clinical Supervision of Clinical Pharmacists can be conducted by:
Senior Clinical Pharmacist (5 years PG training)
GP
ACP (3+ years)
• Each Clinical Pharmacist will receive a minimum of one supervision session per month by a senior Clinical Pharmacist. 1 hour / 3 months of supervision must be provided by a GP Clinical Supervisor.
• All Clinical Pharmacists will have access to an assigned GP clinical supervisor for support and development
• As the number of Clinical Pharmacists working within PCNs increases, this should be on a ratio of one senior Clinical Pharmacist to five Clinical Pharmacists, and in all cases appropriate peer support and supervision must be in place
Please see below further guidance surrounding Supervision:
Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education has designed an efficient way to record the key activities and assessments you undertake as you progress with the Primary care pharmacy education pathway. This will help you to track your progress with learning and assessments throughout the pathway.
Independent prescribing is in addition to the training pathway and will be completed following completion of the PCPEP.
Clinical pharmacists employed through the Network Contract (Direct Enhanced Service (DES) will either be enrolled in or been granted exemption from the 18-month Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP). This pathway equips the pharmacist to be able to practice and prescribe safely and effectively in a primary care setting.
All clinical pharmacists will be part of a professional clinical network and will always be clinically supervised by a senior clinical pharmacist and GP clinical supervisor.
Prior experience, training and qualifications may lead to exemption for some modules – this will be granted by CPPE.
Length of course
Learner receives a statement of assessment & progression on completion of the pathway
18-month pathway, including 28 days dedicated study days
No placement is required as the clinical pharmacist will be employed within primary care whilst completing the PCPEP.
Sign up here to the CPPE Education Pathway newsletter which will keep you up to date on the education pathway for pharmacists.
Accredited training courses by Royal Pharmaceutical Society can be found here.
100% of actual salary plus defined on-costs, up to the maximum reimbursable amount of £65,838 over 12 months.
The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education have developed the Primary care pharmacy education pathway to align the education requirements of the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians with the NHS Long Term Plan and the primary care Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service.
The Clinical Pharmacy Association provide practitioner-led education and training for the pharmacy workforce. Their members are able to access additional and ongoing support for their practice through online forums.
The Kings Fund have conducted research around four ARRS roles including Clinical Pharmacist, to address the experiences of people working in these roles, and the people managing them, to address any lack of understanding and ambiguity. Read the short summary here.
