Job overview
Liverpool University Hospitals Group and The Walton Centre are seeking an exceptional and forward-thinking pharmacist to join our leadership teams as Chief Pharmacist. As the Group’s most senior lead for medicines use and pharmacy services, you will work with Site Directors of Pharmacy and Hospital Leadership Teams to deliver safe, effective and financially sustainable use of medicines.
Significant investments in Pharmacy Services over the last 3 years are delivering real improvements for the population we serve.
As the Group’s senior professional lead for pharmacy and medicines management, you will be responsible for ensuring the safe, effective and financially sustainable use of medicines across inpatient, outpatient and community services. You will provide strategic leadership for medicines safety, clinical governance, workforce development, service transformation and medicines optimisation, while acting as the principal adviser on pharmaceutical matters.
This influential leadership role offers the opportunity to shape services across the Group and wider health system, delivering improvements in patient outcomes, operational performance and financial sustainability while ensuring the highest standards of quality, safety and regulatory compliance.
Experienced Chief Pharmacists with a desire to collaborate to influence patient outcomes, operational and regulatory performance and financial sustainability will be essential pre-requisites for this exciting opportunity.
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The post holder will:
- be the responsible officer for medicines use in the Group Trusts and WCFT
- Have management accountability for the delivery of Pharmacy Services in accordance with the Trust Strategic Plan and the Medicines and Pharmacy Scheme of delegation.
- Provide a comprehensive and high-quality pharmaceutical service, involved in all aspects of medicines management.
- Maintain and strengthen governance and develop the workforce with the right skills, knowledge and experience to ensure safe and effective delivery of medicines management and pharmacy services.
- Provide specialist expertise and, delegated from the Group Chief Executive, and reporting through the Group Medical Director, have corporate responsibility across the Group and WCFT for all aspects of Medicine Optimisation.
- Provide professional leadership for the pharmaceutical services provided to the Trusts and other external customers. This includes performing the duties and responsibilities of the the Superintendent Pharmacist.
- Provide professional leadership and work in collaboration with senior pharmacists in the Integrated Care System and the appropriate Primary Care Networks
- Ensure that services provided are progressive, responsive to internal and external demand, are patient focused, safe, efficient and effective.
- Ensure that the pharmacy workforce is empowered, supported in development and succession planning, trained in quality improvement methodology and the culture values people.
Working for our organisation
NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHL Group) was formed on 1 November 2024, born from a shared aim to improve the care we provide our communities.
We are one of the largest employers in region, with over 18,900 colleagues who are dedicated to caring for our communities - from birth and beyond.
For the 630,000 people across Merseyside, we are their local NHS. We provide general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services that extend to more than two million people in the North West.
We operate from five hospital sites: Aintree University Hospital is the single receiving site for adult major trauma patients in Cheshire and Merseyside, and hosts a number of regional services including an award-winning stroke facility. Broadgreen Hospital is home to several elective surgical, diagnostic and treatment services, together with specialist patient rehabilitation. Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital provide specialist services in cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology and respiratory medicine, both in the hospital and out in the community. Liverpool Women’s Hospital specialises in the health of women and babies, delivering over 7,200 babies in the UK’s largest single site maternity hospital each year. The Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in the country to provide inpatients with 100% single en-suite bedrooms and mainly focuses on complex planned care and specialist services.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
For full details, please refer to the attached job description
Provide clinical leadership to transform the way the Trusts handle medicines, in every respect, to optimise their role.
Provide clinical leadership for all aspects of Medicines Optimisation within the Group Trusts and WCFT, within the Primary Care Networks in Cheshire and Merseyside across the Integrated Care System and beyond to other local health communities.
Continue to develop the Medicines Optimisation strategic plan to align MU&PS services to meet Group Trust-wide needs to drive both quality improvement and productivity gains.
Lead and implement the consequent transformational change.
Work with commercial partners to deliver operational efficiencies.
Enable excellent partnerships with national and local commissioners while also building relationships with primary care providers such as GPs and Community Pharmacists as new clinical leadership structures emerge.
Work with the ICB and specialist commissioners to deliver on commissioning intention requirements in respect of high-cost medicines and associated quality and performance targets.
Undertake the statutory roles and responsibilities of the Superintendent Pharmacist as required by all applicable legislation
Act as Controlled Drug Accountable Officer for the Trusts and be the licence holder for the Home Office Controlled Drug Licences.
Be the licence holder for MHRA Wholesale Dealer's Authority, Aseptic Specials Licences for Aintree, Royal ASU and Radiopharmacy.
Provide professional leadership to MU&PS Teams at Group and Sites to meet current statutory obligations.
Deliver, through the Pharmacy Senior Leadership Team, the active management of all aspects of pharmacy service, making optimal use of resources available.
Work with the Group and WCFT executive teams and site HLTs to address issues relating to pharmacy service provision of the wider Medicines Optimisation agenda.
Please ensure you check the email account (including junk/spam boxes) from which you apply regularly as we will use this to contact you regarding your application.
Posts advertised to ‘internal staff’ are open to employees of hospitals within University Hospitals of Liverpool Group and you should confirm your employment within your application form.
Note: Under current Home Office Immigration Rules we are currently unable to offer right to work visa sponsorship for Band 2 and 3 roles with a salary of less than £25,000 pa as they do not meet the UK Visas & Immigration criteria.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.
We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.
Candidates applying for the role of Healthcare Assistant on the staff bank should note that due to the nature of the role, workers must be aged 18 or above when commencing in post. Applicants are therefore welcome from those aged over 18 or within 3 months’ of their 18th birthday.
The Trust is committed to promoting a healthy work-life balance and achieve fair, equitable and consistent practice. We welcome flexible working requests and will consider a variety of flexible working arrangements from day one of your employment. Not all roles are suitable for every flexible working opportunity all of the time. Flexible working options may include reduced hours, compressed hours, fixed shifts, time back in lieu and home working.
The Trust is committed to promoting equality and diversity; we value the contribution of individual talent, skills, knowledge and experience and aim for a workforce demography representative of the local community. We encourage applicants from the following groups that are currently under-represented in our workforce black, Asian and minority ethnic, lesbian, gay, bisexual and Transgender (LGBTQ+), disabled, male and age 16-24.
Trust policy requires that the cost of submitting & processing the successful applicant/s DBS application be recovered via salary deduction following start in post. The amount of £25.70 (standard disclosure) or £46.70 (enhanced disclosure) will be deducted from salary, in manageable monthly instalments for up to 3 months following commencement of employment. Bank posts require upfront payment.
From April 2017, Skilled visa applicants and their adult dependant(s) will be required to provide a criminal record certificate from each country they have lived in consecutively for 12 months or more in the past ten years.
Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.
This organisation has a zero-tolerance approach to the abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults. All staff must ensure they adhere to the organisations safeguarding children and adults’ policy and comply with the Local Safeguarding Children and Adult Board procedures.
Staff should be mindful of their responsibility to safeguard children and adults in any activity performed on behalf of the organisation in line with the requirements of statutory guidance and legislation.
All employees (and volunteers)are expected maintain their safeguarding knowledge and skills by completing mandatory safeguarding training which includes understanding and recognising the signs of abuse and neglect and taking appropriate action.
As an organisation, we have adopted the Merseyside Domestic abuse workplace scheme which supports our staff who are experiencing Domestic Abuse /any forms of sexual violence.
If you have any personal requirements that will enable you to participate in our recruitment process please contact a member of the Recruitment Services by phone on 0151 706 4666 at the earliest opportunity to ensure that measures can be put in place to enable your application for this post.
Our statement on modern slavery
We have zero tolerance of slavery and human trafficking and are committed to maintaining and improving systems, processes and policies to avoid complicity in human rights violation and to prevent slavery and human trafficking in our supply chain.
The Trust policies, procedures, governance and legal arrangements are robust, ensuring that proper checks and due diligence are applied in employment procedures to ensure compliance with this legislation. We also conform to the NHS employment check standards within our workforce recruitment and selection practices. This strategic approach incorporates analysis of the Trust’s supply chains and its partners to assess risk exposure and management on modern slavery.
Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.