As part of this role, I provide clinical cover to adult acute MH wards; this involves attending multidisciplinary team meetings where I work alongside various healthcare professionals including the consultant, doctors, nurses, social workers, speech and language therapists, dieticians, and various other supporting staff to discuss each patients care. My role involves shared decision making around prescribed medications and I discuss medication options with patients and counsel them on newly prescribed medications.

As part of my lead role, I am working with others to improve the quality of discharge information to and from primary care colleagues when patients leave hospital to ensure there is a seamless transfer of care between settings, and other projects to improve the pharmaceutical care we provide to our inpatients.

Unlike most inpatient hospital pharmacist roles, working at LPFT can be very flexible. I attend the ward and have direct patient contact, and also either work from one of our offices or work from home. I value this as it avoids me having to make a work commute 5 days a week!  Another great benefit of working for LPFT is that we don’t work bank holidays, late nights or do any out of hours on calls. My first Christmas at LPFT was the first time I hadn’t had to work on Christmas Day in 5 years which I really did value!

As well as being a mental health specialist pharmacist in a traditional clinical role, I also review serious patient incidents and complaint investigations on behalf of the pharmacy, as the medicines expert. I find this enormously rewarding because I have the opportunity to contribute and influence patient outcomes with a unique perspective regarding treatment plans or any other medication related investigation questions. I play a part towards formulating incidental learnings and recommendations that are aimed at system improvement.

I respond to clinical medication queries where I provide information and provide a pharmacist’s perspective to help inform individual patient prescribing decisions to prescribers.

The Pharmacy Team here at LPFT is incredibly supportive and knowledgeable. Together we successfully implemented many changes towards better, holistic patient care. The Trust and the pharmacy team have been incredibly understanding and accommodating to each individuals circumstances allowing colleagues to work flexibly and even remotely if needed.

My role involves working alongside specialist mental health pharmacists to support our inpatients and our ward colleagues.

I ensure our patients have timely access to the medications they’re prescribed and advise on their safe storage and use. I Work collaboratively with other healthcare professionals (pharmacists/nurses/doctors) to make a positive difference to patient care.

Within my role I complete medicine reconciliations on admission to ensure necessary medicines taken at home are continued during hospital admissions from home. My work on the wards helps to ensure safe and effective prescribing and use of medicines.

I joined LPFT in 2019 and the support I have received from my colleagues has been amazing. I have had the opportunity to complete lots of training including psych 1 course. I continue to develop my knowledge and progression through the mentoring of my super colleagues and fab management team.

I love travelling around the county and I appreciate being able to work Monday to Friday as this enhances my work life balance. The opportunity for flexible working and access staff wellbeing services, such as counselling, physiotherapy, sleep therapy and physical activity groups are also great benefits to have.

LPFT truly a great place to work!!

LPFT is an incredible trust to work for. I joined literally as the COVID pandemic hit. It was a difficult time for everyone but as far as transitioning into the role went it couldn’t have been easier. Working from home helped massively and although I didn’t meet most of the team in person for the first couple of years, I already felt like I knew them through regular MS Teams meetings. The whole pharmacy team are incredibly supportive and helpful, especially as I moved to Lincolnshire under difficult personal circumstances. My wife is a doctor so being able to work part-time was essential. This was accommodated easily, and management are super flexible, allowing me to increase my hours now I have some spare. All that is expected is that your job is done to the best of your ability. Equally, if the need arises, I’m always willing to go the extra mile or put some extra time in to help the team. Also, there’s no dispensary so we get to concentrate on the exciting stuff and don’t have to work weekends.

My favourite part of the job – if I’m completely honest it’s escaping the kids for a while and taking my mind off everything else that’s going on. Having something important to focus on really helps at the minute. I also enjoy getting to know the patients, particularly seeing an improvement in their attitude and behaviour as they journey on through.

My main role involves supporting the community division to ensure medicines are handled, stored, and managed correctly. I keep patients safe by identifying and supporting the monitoring of high-risk medicines by working with a multidisciplinary team. I’m very passionate about educating and training, so I support new and old nurses and pharmacy staff on induction and throughout their career by building on their own knowledge and expertise. I maintain my clinical role by continuing to support the inpatient wards, through the support of LPFT I have successfully completed the Post-Graduate Certificate for Psychiatric Therapeutics this year which is proud achievement of mine.

I’m a wife and mother to two children, so working full time can sometimes be challenging, LPFT have been amazing at supporting me get the perfect work and home life balance by flexible working and the ability to work from home. I love working for LPFT not only do I not work weekends or bank holidays but because since starting here nine years ago I have grown not only professionally but personally due to the amazing staff that work within the LPFT pharmacy team.

Within my job role I do pre-screens for patients in Community mental health teams that require Pharmacist input, I do this by doing in depth reviews of a person’s medical notes to ensure that medication is being used safely and effectively with those living with mental health illness in the Community. I send letters to GPs to update to update information on the Summary Care Record about drugs that are prescribed by LPFT to ensure safety and accuracy. I am also involved in High-Risk Drug Project which is ongoing in which I collect data to better care for patients by ensuring they are getting the appropriate care with the High-Risk Drug they are taking. I often cover Clozapine clinics at both Gainsborough and Louth that I really enjoy doing and has given me lots of confidence when talking to patients directly about their medication. I often cover wards when members of staff are on annual leave, giving me an opportunity to ‘mix it up’ and still have my hand in acute patient care even though I am mainly based in the Community

The Pharmacy team is a supportive environment and as a new starter you are given lots of training which gave me the confidence to step into my role; in addition to this if you feel as though you need more training in an area you are unsure of the pharmacy team is very good in accommodating this and supporting. The benefits to working in a Community Pharmacy Technician role is that I can work from home or go to the office which breaks up my working week nicely and I don’t have to work any weekends or bank holidays. LPFT have an excellent staff wellbeing service that can be accessed at any time by any member of staff which I think is very important for a positive work environment.