People at the Heart. One Team. Your Career at WWL.
Job overview
The Pharmacy department are seeking a motivated and dynamic Pharmacy Technician.
You will need to be inspirational, determined and able to influence healthcare professionals outside of traditional pharmacy boundaries. We offer an opportunity to provide the highest standards of care for patients and develop your own professional career.
You will spend most of your working week on your ward, actively participating in the multi‑disciplinary team, making pharmaceutical interventions, resolving medicines‑reconciliation queries at the first opportunity, ensuring appropriate medicines are started in line with the Trust formulary, ensuring effective antimicrobial stewardship, ensuring effective medicines safety (e.g. VTE prophylaxis, therapeutic drug monitoring), capturing transfer of care information, ordering new medicines when necessary, and supporting effective discharge planning.
Candidates are required to present original certificates for qualifications at interview stage.
Please note this vacancy may close earlier than the specified closing date if a high level of suitable applications are received.
Main duties of the job
Directly accountable to the Pharmacy Technician Team Manager, you will help shape services and standards, driving improvements in medicines optimisation.
This is an extremely exciting time to join our pharmacy team. We are developing our own ward‑based pharmacy support to all wards. Each ward has its own dedicated pharmacist/technician and assistant, supporting medicines optimisation and delivering proactive ward‑based pharmacy services, including effective discharge planning and patient counselling and education.
Alongside medical, nursing and pharmacy colleagues, you must have a strong desire to help manage change in policies, procedures and associated risk‑management activities which lead to quality improvements on admission and discharge.
You will improve key performance indicators in patient education about medicines, time to discharge, length of stay and re‑admission rates. This approach has been shown to reduce length of stay, get patients home earlier in the day, reduce readmission rates, reduce drug expenditure, and improve patient and staff experience.
We have Medicine Administration technicians on various wards across the trust to support our nursing colleagues.
Working for our organisation
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are the proud providers of acute hospital and community services to the people of the Wigan Borough and surrounding areas. At WWL, we value our staff, believing that “happy staff, makes for happy patients”. We have a recognised track record in staff engagement and living our values.
People at the Heart
Listen and Involve
Kind and Respectful
WWL are committed to placing the patient at the heart of everything we do, and in the provision of safe, effective care that acknowledges and ensures dignity. We are seeking to recruit people who share our values and beliefs.
At WWL we value the benefits a rich and diverse workforce brings to our community and therefore welcome applications from all sections of society.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Key results from the job holder
- Support the Pharmacy Technician Team Manager in delivering ward‑based services to an agreed range of patients in collaboration with pharmacists, technicians and assistants
- Provide clinical technician support to existing clinical pharmacist services
- Administer medicines on wards
- Accuracy check, clinically check out‑patient prescriptions, CD tins, discharge letters and One‑Stop Dispensing orders
- Communicate in a professional manner, providing factual information about availability of medicines to patients, other Trust staff and external departments
- Be aware of overall medication needs of patients on the ward, including taking an effective medication history, assessing suitability of patients’ own drugs for re‑use on ward, liaising with dispensary staff to organise appropriate supplies of medication, maintaining relevant stock lists, ensuring urgent medication requests are fulfilled, counselling patients during their stay and prior to discharge, understanding and implementing relevant departmental procedures, suggesting improvements to procedures through line management, receiving, interpreting, dispensing and handing out prescriptions in line with departmental standard operating procedures, assisting in the supply of medications to wards, departments and external agencies, reviewing and revising stock lists for wards, issuing controlled drugs to patients, wards and departments and maintaining relevant registers, participating in clinical trials under supervision ensuring relevant details are maintained in trials documentation
Planning and Organisational Duties
- Recycle or destroy medicines returned from wards, departments and external agencies
- Assist in the ordering, issuing and receiving of medication
- Assist in the maintenance of the pharmacy stock system
- Check expiry dates and safe storage of medicines within areas of responsibility, ensuring effective action when necessary
- Assist in audit and surveys as directed by line manager
Communications and Key Working Relationships
- Organise own work patterns within framework provided by Line Manager
- Be an active member of relevant pharmacy groups, contributing to development of high quality and consistent pharmaceutical policies, procedures and services within the Trust
- Read and comply with agreed SOPs to provide a consistent, efficient and effective service
- Be a positive role model for the Pharmacy service and develop effective working relationships with other healthcare professionals within area of responsibility
Responsibility for Finance
- Handle prescription charges and issue relevant receipts
Responsibility for Human Resources
- Provide support for pharmacy assistants, senior pharmacy assistants, student pharmacy technicians, pre‑registration pharmacists, workplace experience students and new starters within boundaries of knowledge, skill, experience and training
- Participate in Trust compulsory training programme and Trust appraisal system
- Participate in continuous professional development in line with GPhC requirements
Responsibility for Health & Safety
- Ensure patients and staff are advised of risks with medicines and minimise those risks through effective medicines management
- Bring known risks to attention of line managers immediately
- Report medicines‑related incidents using the Datix system and work with managers to put appropriate systems in place to prevent recurrence where possible
- Comply with the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, fulfilling a proactive role towards risk management in all actions
Responsibility for Teaching
- Provide assessment for NVQ level 3 pharmacy student technicians
- Organise and deliver Level 2 Foundation Modern Apprenticeship in dispensing and pharmacy assistant training for ATOs
Person specification
Additional
- May be required to lift heavy objects from time to time
- Speak English to an appropriate standard relevant to the role, using correct sentence structures and vocabulary with confidence and accuracy, without hesitation
Knowledge
- Basic computer skills
Skills
- Accurate
- Methodical
- Diplomatic
- Ability to work in team or on own
- Ability to delegate tasks
Experience
- Previous work experience in a pharmacy or similar healthcare setting
Qualifications
- BTEC / NVQ level 3 pharmacy services or equivalent
- Registered with GPhC as pharmacy technician
Our preferred method of application is online. If you experience any difficulties submitting your application, please contact the Recruitment Team on 01942 773823 for support.
Using AI when writing job applications If you choose to use artificial intelligence or other tools to assist in writing your application, it is essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting statement to reflect the skills and experience to match your job application. Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting statement is not advocated by Wrightington Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as it could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process. Please refer to the attached “Applying for a role in the NHS” guidance for further information regarding the use of AI.
The Trust reserves the right to close adverts earlier than the stated closing date if there is a high volume of applications.
We endeavour to inform all applicants of the outcome of their application by email or SMS text message.
Guidance on Completing Your Application
Applications are assessed against the person specification. We strongly encourage you to use the supporting information section to demonstrate how you meet the essential and desirable criteria, providing clear examples where possible.
On-Call
Please note that some roles may require participation in an on‑call rota, particularly those that are operational in nature.
WWL is part of the Greater Manchester Continuous Service Commitment. We recognise continuous or ‘unbroken’ service from any Greater Manchester Local Authority, NHS organisation, Transport for Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service or the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This ensures access to our service‑related benefits.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
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