Overview
Within primary care, clinical pharmacists work as part of a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) in a patient facing role to clinically assess and treat patients, using their expert knowledge of medicines to add value to and to improve patient care and patient outcomes.
The majority of the clinical pharmacists’ role will be undertaken in consultations with patients, whether in the GP practice, care homes or remotely. They will usually be independent prescribers, or will be completing training to become prescribers, and will work as part of the wider practice team, under the supervision of a GP.
Scope of Practice
Role Responsibilities
- Performing medication reviews including ‘Structured Medication Review’ for patients at increased risk of harm on medication
- Triaging and managing common ailments
- Responding to acute medicine requests
- Managing and prescribing for long-term conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma
- Holding minor ailment clinics
- Reconciling medications for patients recently discharged from hospital
- Helping the practice deliver on the QIPP and QOF agenda and enhanced services
- Being the point of contact for all medicine-related queries
- Overseeing the practice’s repeat prescription policy
- Audit and education
- Medicines management
Entry Requirements
- You need to complete a five-year programme of academic and practice-based teaching to become a pharmacist
- In your first four years, you will study for a Master’s degree in pharmacy (MPharm) at university
- This is followed by a one year paid work placement called a foundation training year
- From 2025/2026 independent prescribing will become part of the Master’s degree and foundation year training
- After successful completion your foundation year, you can register with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and legally practise as a pharmacist
- General practice roles often require a minimum of 2 years post graduate experience in pharmacy.
- If you are working in a PCN role you may be enrolled in an 18 month primary care pharmacy education training programme followed by independent prescribing
Training and Development
‘Radical workforce transformation is required to deliver the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan and NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. Pharmacy professionals will need to work differently, become embedded in multidisciplinary teams and provide more direct care for patients within the new integrated care systems.
Our work aims to deliver a more responsive pharmacy workforce, equipped with the skills to deliver a clinical service across all care settings, and adapted to new ways of working’.
Mandatory Training
See above ‘Entry Requirements’
Independent Prescribing
The ability to independently prescribe is crucial for pharmacists delivering care across the NHS. Working with NHS partners and stakeholders, NHSE are developing funded training offers for pharmacists aiming to become independent prescribers.
Training will enable the provision of new models of care: supporting patients from diagnosis to prescribing, providing advice and follow-up, and preparing pharmacists to provide clinical care, as pharmacy services become more widespread within emerging clinical pathways. For further information see NHS England.
Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP)
A Designated Prescribing Professional (DPP) is a healthcare professional in Great Britain or Northern Ireland with legal independent prescribing rights who supervises a health care professional during their independent prescribing (IP) course and provides ‘sign-off’ on their competency to prescribe.
It is a GPhC requirement that a pharmacist undertaking independent prescribing training must have a named DPP who takes overall responsibility for supervision and will determine that the IP learner is suitable for IP annotation on their professional register. For further information see NHS England
Additional Training Opportunities
Please see the below links for further Pharmacy Training Opportunities;
Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE)
Primary Care Pharmacy Association (PCPA)
ProPharmace | Pre-Registration Training provider in the United Kingdom
Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education
Advanced Practice Recognition
Please see link to the SNEE TH Advanced Practice page for full information on Advanced Practice.
Consultant Pharmacist
This is a clinical expert working at a senior level, delivering care for patients, and driving change across the healthcare system. Consultant pharmacists are required to have a high level of expertise and skill across the four pillars of clinical practice, leadership, research, and education, undertaking activities that use their extensive, expert knowledge and skills to contribute to the health of individuals and the population.
For those wishing to become a consultant pharmacist they are expected to use the Advanced Pharmacy Framework to determine their development needs and may benefit from mentorship from an existing consultant pharmacist. Successful candidates will be able to show ‘mastery’ in most competencies within the Expert Professional Practice, Collaborative Working Relationships, and Leadership clusters and at least advanced stage II in the remaining three clusters (Research and Evaluation, Education, Training and Development, and Management). For further information see Credentialing & Consultant Pharmacists | RPS (rpharms.com)
Supervision requirements
Supervision is a process of professional learning and development that enables individuals to reflect on and develop their knowledge, skills and competence, through regular support from another professional.
Supervision can have different forms and functions and a number of terms are used to describe these. For this guidance we use the below terms and define them as follows:
- Clinic/practice supervision: day-to-day support provided by a named/duty senior/more experienced clinician for issues arising in the practice.
- Clinical/professional supervision: regular support from a named senior/experienced clinician/practitioner to promote high clinical standards and develop professional expertise.
- Educational supervision: supports learning and enables learners to achieve proficiency.
It is recommended that Clinical Pharmacists have access to appropriate clinical supervision and an appropriate named individual in the PCN to provide general advice and support on a day-to-day basis. This would typically be an Advanced pharmacist practitioner, or senior clinical pharmacist and a GP for support and development. Recommended minimum frequency of a 1 hour supervision meeting is monthly.
Supervision Guidance for primary care network multidisciplinary teams (NHSE, 2023)
Funding
AFC Band 7/8a
100% of actual salary plus defined on costs covered via ARRS Scheme.
Training and Development Funding
Clinical Pharmacists may be entitled to national or regional NHSE commissioned funding to support their training and development requirements. Please contact the training hub for more information on this.
A number of training and development courses funded by the Pharmacy Integration Fund are available for individual pharmacists. These offer flexible and accessible learning solutions, allowing those enrolling to study at work, or in their own time. To find out more about these training and development opportunities, including eligibility criteria and course providers, please visit Pharmacy Integration Fund.
Recruitment Information
Where a PCN employs or engages a Clinical Pharmacist under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, the PCN must ensure that the Clinical Pharmacist meets the ‘Minimum Role Requirements’ stipulated in Annex B of the Network DES
Please find various resources in this section to assist in the recruitment and embedding of the Clinical Pharmacist role in General Practice.
Recruitment Resources
Additional Resources
Revalidation
Every time a pharmacy professional renews their registration with GPhC, they will need to submit records to show they how they have carried out and recorded revalidation activities. You will need to complete;
- Four CPD Records (two of which must be planned events)
- One peer discussion record
- One reflective account record
Medicines Optimisation Teams
Suffolk and North East Essex (SNEE) Integrated Care Board (ICB) have Medicines Optimisation Teams in all three alliances. Register free with the SNEE ICB website to access clinical guidelines, formularies, position statements, and more.
Professional Indemnity
From April 2019 the Clinical Negligence Scheme for General Practice in England and Wales covers everyone providing NHS services for general practice. This includes pharmacy professionals.
The indemnity scheme does not cover non-NHS work. It does not provide legal representation for inquests and disciplinary investigations.
All pharmacy professionals must have professional indemnity arrangements. This is to cover their role and scope of practice (under article 32 of the Pharmacy Order 2010. It is part of their professional registration with the GPhC).
If a pharmacy professional is engaged in non-NHS work on behalf of the general practice, the practice must check that they have sufficient cover.
Professional indemnity requirements | General Pharmaceutical Council (pharmacyregulation.org)