Job summary
- Main area
- Pharmacy
- Grade
- Band 8b
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 18.75 hours per week
- Job ref
- 408-25-209
- Employer
- Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Wirral University Teaching Hospital
- Town
- Upton
- Salary
- £62,215 - £72,293 per annum pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 20/03/2025 23:59
Employer heading

Lead Pharmacist Medicines Safety
Band 8b
To discover why you should consider applying for a role at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, please watch our video and hear directly from our staff about what it’s truly like to work at WUTH and its surrounding areas:
Job overview
We are looking for a dynamic and forward thinking pharmacist to lead the medicines safety programme at WUTH as a job share 0.5WTE, due to promotion one of the current leads. This joint role works closely with senior Trust leads and the Pharmacy Senior Leadership Team as the Trust’s Medicines Safety Officer. WUTH is a great place to work, where medicines safety is well respected and integrated with Trust priorities and pharmacy teams benefit from being co-located.
The role will require a credible and motivated leader with a passion for patient safety and an inquiring mind to make our hospital the safest place to take medicines. You will be pragmatic, solutions focussed and have experience in successful engagement, collaboration and change implementation. The role includes leading and developing our fantastic Medicines Safety Team of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, patient safety nurse and support staff.
Main duties of the job
The key aspects of the role are:
· Identifying themes and exploring factors involved in serious incidents with multidisciplinary teams, to identify learning and opportunities to take forward improvements in systems, processes and training.
· Implementing alerts, national priorities and learning from other Trusts
· Undertaking quality improvement, audit and research to support innovative practice and provide assurance to sustain robust medicines management systems and processes.
· Work with Pharmacy’s Education and Training Team to better enable multidisciplinary teams to discharge their responsibilities relating to the prescription, procurement, storage, supply and administration of medicines. This includes risk assessment and support for new roles and changes in skill mix to ensure safe practice.
· Contribute to the Wirral Place and ICB work programmes and the national medicines safety agenda.
· Undertake some clinical sessional input to experience processes and systems first hand.
Working for our organisation
All new colleagues can expect to receive a warm and friendly Wirral welcome from the very first time they make contact with us. We are described as “competent and caring staff” by our patients.
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is situated on The Wirral peninsula which has a stunning coastline and beautiful countryside surroundings, with great activities for its residents.
We are one of the largest and busiest acute Trusts in the North West of England, comprising of the Wirral’s only Emergency Department. We provide a high quality range of acute care services and employ over 6,000 staff, who serve a population of approximately 400,000 people across Wirral, Ellesmere Port, Neston, North Wales and the wider North West footprint.
We have approximately 855 beds trust-wide and our financial turnover is in excess of £337m.
The Wirral is easily accessible with excellent transport links including motorway, train, bus or ferry and within easy reach to the major cities of Liverpool, Chester and Manchester as well as neighbouring North Wales.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see attached Job Description for further information about the Lead Pharmacist Medicines Safetyposition available at WUTH.
Person specification
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria
- Expert knowledge and practical skills relating to medicines safety
- Enquiring mind with the ability to get to the root cause of issues
- Ability to work across professional boundaries to achieve changes in systems and processes
- Good leadership and management skills
- Ability to affect and manage change successfully
- Understanding of and ability to implement Trust priorities
- Excellent communication and negotiation skills with other professionals, patients and carers, including verbal, written and electronic
- Good interpersonal skills, able to work with all grades of staff, patients and the public
- Excellent organisation and time management skills
- Ability to work to deadlines and meet targets
- Able to prioritise own workload and for others
- Able to direct team activity and facilitate staff development
- Computer literate and good keyboard skills
- Ability to perform calculations to a high degree of accuracy to enable report writing
- Commitment to and demonstration of Continuing Professional Development
Desirable criteria
- Expert knowledge of risk management systems and processes
- Expert knowledge of medicines legislation and regulation within NHS acute trust settings
Qualifications, Specific Experience & Training
Essential criteria
- Vocational Masters Degree in Pharmacy
- Registered with General Pharmaceutical Society (GPhC)
- Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy or equivalent experiential learning
- 6 years experience as a qualified pharmacist within a range of clinical areas
- Experience of developing evidence based clinical guidelines / policies
- Experience of reviewing medication incidents, identifying the root cause and providing solutions with a plan to prevent recurrence
- Experience of training others - both pharmacy staff and other healthcare professionals
- Undertaken a lead role in audit
- Experience of leading projects
Desirable criteria
- Management qualification/training or equivalent experiential learning
- Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
- Member of the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association
- Lecturing/clinical teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate level
- Undertaken lead role in NPSA or other medication safety alerts on an organisational wide basis
- Experience of managing others including appraisals, objective setting and personal development planning
- Research background or evidence of evaluative and analytical practice
Personal Attributes
Essential criteria
- Enthusiasm for the position
- Lead by example
- Self starter with ability to motivate self and others
- Able to multi-task
- Able to work alone and as a team member
- Able to deal with constant interruptions and competing priorities
- Ability to remain calm and articulate in contentious situations
- Able to deal with and resolve conflict
- Methodical with good attention to detail
- Solution focused
Other Requirements
Essential criteria
- Ability to work as per departmental weekend, evening and bank holiday rotas
Applicant requirements
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.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Debra Jones
- Job title
- Pharmacy Business Support Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0151 604 7416
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