Deputy Director of Pharmacy - Band 8D

Job overview

Are you looking for the next step into more senior pharmacy management role?

Are you an aspiring Chief Pharmacist?

Due to a restructure within the department's senior leadership team, an exciting opportunity has arisen to become our Deputy Director of Pharmacy. As the Deputy Director you will have your own portfolio of work as well as deputising for the Director of Pharmacy when they are unavailable. To learn more about working in Pharmacy at NBT, click here to watch our video.

Main duties of the job

Your main responsibilities will be for the development and implementation of the pharmacy people and financial plans.

You will develop a robust workforce plan by engaging with key stakeholders, both within trust, ICS, region and beyond. This plan will consider the new training of pharmacy professionals and the expanding roles of the non-registered workforce. To deliver this you will lead the Pharmacy's Learning and Development team and work with a variety of teams at all levels of the NHS. Your financial plan will include the use of medicines, their commissioning and a robust cost improvement plan to keep the pharmacy department in financial balance. To do this you will liaise with many stakeholders, both within and outside of the Trust, and lead the Pharmacy’s Pharmacoeconomics team.

Both of these responsibilities will require you to have excellent communication and negotiation skills with clinical and non-clinical colleagues at all levels.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

FINANCIAL AND HUMAN RESOURCE SCOPE OF JOB

The Deputy Director of Pharmacy will have full delegated authority from the Director of Pharmacy for the area they manage and will cover the duties of the Director of Pharmacy during any period of absence.

Human Resources

The post holder is managerially accountable for around 20 staff providing various duties. Of these, the majority are graduates and many hold further postgraduate specialist qualifications, some up to doctorate level.

Financial Resource

The post holder has direct managerial accountability for a staff and pharmaceutical product budget

The post holder is expected to have impact on (though are NOT accountable for) the £62 million NBT medicines expenditure. This is through influencing and supporting the clinical controlling – through working with the Associate Directors of Pharmacy, the use of medicines to ensure clinical and cost effectiveness. Also liaising with the NBT Pharmacy procurement lead to report procurement savings within the trust CIP process. The post holder will co-ordinate the development and reporting of savings schemes across the pharmacy service.

Provides high quality, bespoke medicines and pharmacy metrics data to all Clinical Directorates to support the cost effective, consistent and safe use of medicines across the Trust and to the Trust & Directorate non-pay Finance Committees to support accurate planning, forecasting and monitoring of medicines expenditure and provision of pharmacy services.

The post holder will:

Deputise for the Director of Pharmacy – regularly (weekly) providing cover for the Director of Pharmacy (whilst undertaking other commitments) fulfilling leadership roles and providing suitable handover and communications during these periods.

Provide professional leadership for the Pharmacy Learning and Development and Pharmacoeconomics team to provide the trust and other external customers a well-led service. Work with the Director of Pharmacy to ensure that all areas of pharmacy practice, including their own, is within the legal and regulatory boundaries currently in place - where practice is found to be non-compliant, this is addressed through the relevant trust processes.

Lead for NBT on the safe storage, supply, security and quality of medical gases including Chairing the NBT Medical Gas Group.

Ensure trust-wide compliance with relevant new directives as they arise where medicinal products are involved.

Have accountability for the development of strategic plans for the Pharmacy workforce, covering the next 3-5 years. Ensuring alignment to the overall strategy for pharmacy service and the Trust, where appropriate, while maintaining l viability.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE PHARMACY COMPONENT OF THE JOB

Statutory Professional Accountabilities

The scale and scope of this job is such that these introductory statements provide an indication of where post holders may need to be aware of their own limitations with respect to certain aspects of the pharmacy service at NBT. They should be read in conjunction with the Person Specification.

Strategic Management:

Lead strategic development of the Pharmacy Workforce. Contribute to the development and review of the trust strategic plan.

With the Associate Directors of Pharmacy, lead strategic development of the Pharmacy workfoce and contribute to the development of a strategic plan for medicines management and ensure that the Trust strategic plan reflects this.

Contribute to the development of a strategic vision for the pharmacy service that is shared and owned by pharmacy staff and that has been consulted on widely both internally within the department and with external NBT pharmacy customers.

Interpret broad clinical/professional policies and NHS guidance to ensure that both the Pharmacy Workforce strategic plans are appropriately updated.

Through critically evaluating the NBT business planning and approval process advise the Director of Pharmacy of the impact of the strategic plans of other services where there are implications for either the pharmacy service itself or the medicines management agenda.

Business Planning

As directed by the Director of Pharmacy and within the NBT business planning process develop the overall annual business plan for pharmacy business operations.

Ensure any potential medicines management implications arising from business plans within other services are fully agreed, and where necessary appropriately resourced.

Link with the Directorate and Project Management Office to ensure business plans and cases for development of services across NBT consider medicines management implications during their development this may require analysis of complex multifactorial business plans and cases to assess Pharmacy impacts.

Ensure pharmacy staff are aware of the objectives set for the Pharmacy service within the annual business plan and that these are fully reflected within the staff appraisal and development process.

Ensure there are agreed performance management frameworks to effectively monitor the delivery of the pharmacy service annual business plan.

Operational Management:

Provide professional pharmaceutical and management leadership to the Learning and Development and Pharmacoeconomic teams to meet current statutory obligations.

Deliver, through the pharmacy leadership team, the active management of all aspects of Learning and Development making optimal use of resources available.

As directed by Director of Pharmacy ensure communication of developments any decisions made whilst deputising are reviewed and are in line with the NBT Medicines Optimisation Strategy, national priorities and the NBT strategy.

Lead on aspects of, or actively participate in, pharmacy-wide or trust-wide issues where required and agreed within performance objectives.

Leads for NBT on the safe storage, supply, security and quality of medical gases including Chairing the NBT Medical Gas Group.

Identify, evaluate and seek to implement innovative developments for all Pharmacy staff in support of the local, regional and national agendas for Medicines Optimisation.

With the  Pharmacy leadership team support the Director of Pharmacy in ensuring the pharmacy services remains responsive to the needs of patients.

Financial Management:

Manages allocated pay and non-pay budget for Learning and Development to ensure they remain within current resources.

Using clinical and operational pharmacy experience and associated skills developed identify possible cost improvement plans in medicines usage for presentation to appropriate Trust Committees, and working with the clinical pharmacy and procurement teams in project managing the necessary changes, audit and reporting of savings. This will include Influencing key senior managers to adopt new approaches, critically evaluating complex activity information and trends.

Deliver cost reduction initiatives within the Pharmacy Services including the delivery of cost improvement targets while maintaining regulatory standards.

Co-ordinate the identification to the Director of Pharmacy any cost pressures within budgets and advise on ways of dealing with such pressures.

Clinical Governance:

Working closely with the Associate Director of Pharmacy – Medicines Governance and Safety to actively involve pharmacy staff within the pharmacy team in the delivery of Quality Management Systems to support Clinical Governance, in accordance with the agreed trust-wide strategy. This will include participation in Clinical Governance activities within the department and, as required across the trust.

Ensure all aspects of the Pharmacy Services exceed any agreed national or trust ‘minimum standard’ and that where this not the case it is identified through the Director of Pharmacy together with proposed actions to resolve the issue.

Ensure the Pharmacy Services are equipped to pro-actively influence safe and cost-effective drug therapy in conjunction with clinical staff. This requires that practice is evidence based and staff appropriately trained with effective clinical supervision leading to development of necessary business cases for investment.

Ensure, through engagement and consultation, that service users (patients and other healthcare staff) have input to the planning and implementation of service delivery.

Human Resources:

Accountable for the direct management of the senior Learning and Development and Pharmacoeconomic management teams and, through them, for all staff within those areas.

Ensure that good HR practices are applied including application of all agreed trust policies and procedures, the requirements of ‘Investors in People’ and initiatives around ‘Equality,  Diversity and Inclusion’.

Accountable for the development of a Pharmacy workforce plan, as part of the overall business planning process for the Pharmacy department.

Supports the Director of Pharmacy (through involvement in trust wide business planning) in the development of the Medicines Management workforce plan.

Continually analyse and review skill mix to meet service needs and professional standards in force at the time, reporting any deficits to the senior pharmacy team with proposals for corrective action.

Recruit, develop and motivate staff to ensure they can and do perform well in their job, contribute towards improvements to the pharmaceutical service and achievement of the pharmacy business plan/Trust corporate objectives.

Foster a culture of lifelong learning, to include provision for post-registration education, continuing professional education/development and vocational training of staff within pharmacy.

Ensure systems are in place to identify poor performance of any type and that any individuals identified are appropriately supported and managed within trust policies. Where appropriate, this may incorporate holding performance, conduct or other associated HR related meetings with staff.