Clinical Pharmacy Service
Non-urgent advice: Clinical Pharmacists
What is a Clinical Pharmacist?
As a Clinical Pharmacist I may be a little different to the pharmacist that you will be used to seeing on your local high street. I still have all the same training, but have developed extra skills and undergone further training to enable me to help you manage your medicines and health better.
When will you see me?
You may be referred to see me by a nurse, or GP – or you may see me first. We call this triage. I am able to write prescriptions to treat the conditions in which I have specialised. I also might reach out to you via a telephone call or text message to arrange an appointment with you.
Long term conditions
As a Clinical Pharmacist I can help you to manage your long term conditions. If you have a condition such as asthma, Type 2 diabetes, arthritis or high blood pressure I can discuss your medicines and make sure they are working for you. I can take time to go through things that you may have forgotten over time, like how to use your inhaler well, or getting the best from your blood glucose monitor, talk about dose timings, side effects and what you can expect. All those things that you were thinking that you didn’t want to bother your doctor with, or you forgot to ask in your usual appointment.
Organising your prescription queries
Together with the rest of the team, I’ll monitor requests for repeat prescriptions, checking you’ve had the right blood tests done, helping to sync up your medicines – and as I have a community pharmacy background, I’ll be able to help with all those niggly queries that can make your prescriptions tricky. I dealt with these things on the front line in pharmacy for many years – so I’ve seen most things before!
Although I won’t be giving you your medicines, I’ll have a line of communication into your local pharmacy, helping you to sort out availability issues and prescription problems.
Reviewing your medicines
If you have been taking medicines for a long time, you may see a clinical pharmacist periodically. We can review your medicines together, carry out health and blood pressure checks, and have time to talk together about the things that matter to you about your health and medicines. If we have any concerns we can’t resolve – we’ll pass those to your doctor.
After a stay in hospital
If your medicines have been started, or changed, in hospital, I might talk to you to explain these changes, and make sure you understand how your new medicines will work for you. I’ll be helping ensure that the information that comes from the hospital, gets transferred to your GP records properly, and that your new prescriptions are ready to go in the community – when you need them.
Non-urgent advice: Pharmacy Technicians
Pharmacy Technicians are pharmacy professionals who play an integral part in helping patients to make the most of their medicines. Their primary role is in supporting the Clinical pharmacists in the delivery of clinical pharmacy services.
They perform medicines improvement work to maximise safe, cost-effective best practice in prescribing under the supervision of the Clinical Pharmacist/s, assisting with medication safety monitoring systems (e.g., high-risk drugs) and liaising with clinicians and administrative staff to resolve medicine-related queries.
Pharmacy Technicians monitor practice prescribing and adherence to the PCN’s and Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS) policies, including any other local and national prescribing policies and guidelines. They improve service and quality through mechanisms such as audits.
Some of their chief duties are in supporting the Clinical Pharmacists in Structured Medication Reviews. Undertaking patient-supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use through shared decision-making. Supporting medicine reconciliation of patients whose care is transferred back into primary care in a timely and effective manner liaising with clinical and non-clinical staff along with patients and other providers to ensure patients receive appropriate medication post discharge and implementing electronic repeat dispensing (eRD) where possible.
The knowledge and skills of Pharmacy Technicians are widely recognised, and as registered professionals, Pharmacy Technicians are responsible and accountable for their own accurate and safe practice.