By Anne-Marie Kitchen-Wheeler, Advanced Pharmacist
I’m a pharmacist with over 30 years of experience in a variety of roles in community and primary care practice. I completed Faculty accreditation in 2017 and Independent Prescriber (IP) accreditation in 2018. My practice developed rapidly within a short time of working at a large GP surgery. My role is very patient-facing, offering two clinics per day reviewing polypharmacy in older, frail patients; running diabetes, hypertension and pain management clinics; responding to acute medication requests from patients; completing hospital medication reconciliations and supporting GPs with prescribing advice. I now lead a team of six pharmacists and two pharmacy technicians within Beckenham PCN. The invitation to participate in the first cohort for the RPS Advanced Pharmacist accreditation arrived at just the right time since it offered a new route for credentialing my Advanced Practice capability.
Navigating the RPS Advanced Pharmacist Portfolio
The RPS Advanced Pharmacist programme start was delayed so I took the opportunity to gain practice in using the portfolio. I recorded a few pieces of evidence from work completed over the past five years and reflected on how I had built on the skills and applied them in my current practice. I’m pleased I started early as getting collaboration on projects already completed took more time than expected. From April to August (when I submitted) the focus on portfolio building was full-on and I needed to be very organised. My weekends were taken over with creating entries, planning which projects I would include in the portfolio and planning activities for future completion. During working hours I was organising collaborators to observe my clinics and making the most of Ad Hoc opportunities e.g. when briefing a new registrar GP on prescribing systems I would ask them to observe me examining a patient in clinic.
Although I completed the portfolio in a few months I suggest that 12-24 months is a more realistic period to populate the portfolio and properly collate and complete the required breadth of evidence. Expect personal growth as you receive more feedback than you have ever previously received in your career so take the time to properly reflect.
Mentoring and leadership reflections
I realised how much mentoring I do with not only colleague pharmacists and technicians but also GPs on prescribing advice and systems, and other Multi-Disciplinary Team members (MDT) including nurses and community pharmacists. The large MDT team provided the opportunity to spread the collaborator burden. The feedback received in the Multi-Source Feedback for my portfolio was possibly the most professionally validating activity I have ever completed. I experienced multiple opportunities to reflect on my current and future role: on what I was good at and where the strengths of my team lie so that I can make more effective use of my colleagues’ strengths and how I can effectively support them. In creating portfolio leadership evidence (expert mentor reports, leadership activities) I stepped up as team leader and enjoyed the extra responsibility.
Even if you already practice at Advanced level you will be challenged and discover potential as collaborators, supervisors and assessors examine your practice.
Read more about the RPS Core Advanced Pharmacist Curriculum.
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