Consultant Pharmacist

The RPS Faculty provides a structure for your professional development. We highly recommend that you use the tools to identify your areas good practice and areas for development. This will help you focus your learning. Joining the RPS Faculty gives you the opportunity to benchmark and perhaps distinguish yourself from your peers; gaining a post-nominal to reflect your stage of advanced practice as you do so. You also receive access to a library of tools and resources to support your professional development.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, consultant pharmacists are expected to have a minimum of Expert Professional Practice, Collaborative Working Relationships and Leadership at Mastery, with Management, Education, Training and Development, and Research and Evaluation at Advanced Stage II. It should be remembered that these are the minimum requirements for a specific post, therefore a consultant pharmacist could apply for a post with Advanced Stage II and their Faculty portfolio and Professional Development Plan could be used a plan to develop and advance to Fellowship stage within 5 years.

We are working with the Consultant Pharmacists Group to determine a career pathway.

The RPS Roadmap to Advanced Practice supports the development and assessment of Advanced Practitioners, both specialist and generalist. Our section on the context for change: establishing the need for advanced pharmacists provides the following information:

“The RPS Consultant Pharmacist Group has developed a strategy to align Consultant Pharmacist support and development with patient need across the three nations, alongside the Foundation and Faculty programmes and RPS professional development imperatives. (see appendix 3 for further information)”

The roadmap also contains information on National training programmes (NTPs), which will be delivered by RPS Affiliated Partners, NTPS will address pharmacy clinical training needs from post-foundation through advanced levels of career development up to Consultant level. 

You may find it helpful to have the support of an RPS Mentor. Further information on our mentoring programme and how to obtain a mentor are available on our website. 

Prescribing may form part of your role as consultant pharmacist. The RPS are developing an Ultimate Guide for Prescribing Pharmacists which is due to published in December 2017. Support for pharmacist prescribers can be found on our website. 

The RPS Faculty provides a structure for your professional development. We highly recommend that you use the tools to identify your areas good practice and areas for development. This will help you focus your learning. Joining the RPS Faculty gives you the opportunity to benchmark and perhaps distinguish yourself from your peers; gaining a post-nominal to reflect your stage of advanced practice as you do so. You also receive access to a library of tools and resources to support your professional development.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, consultant pharmacists are expected to have a minimum of Expert Professional Practice, Collaborative Working Relationships and Leadership at Mastery, with Management, Education, Training and Development, and Research and Evaluation at Advanced Stage II. It should be remembered that these are the minimum requirements for a specific post, therefore a consultant pharmacist could apply for a post with Advanced Stage II and their Faculty portfolio and Professional Development Plan could be used a plan to develop and advance to Fellowship stage within 5 years.

If you are interested in mentoring aspiring consultant pharmacists or would like to receive the support of a mentor, please contact: [email protected]

The RPS Leadership Development Framework outlines the behaviours of effective, engaging leadership – the behaviours that enable pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists to make a real difference to care and outcomes. Our Ultimate guide for Chief Pharmacists contains further information to support leadership development. 

We have a number of expert panels and groups formed of members with specific areas of expertise relating to pharmacy, pharmaceutical science and the pharmacy profession. Further information on our expert advisory groups can be found on our website . Consultant pharmacists may be involved with these groups. For further information about any of the panels and groups please contact [email protected]

Our Ultimate Guide Our Ultimate guide for Chief Pharmacists contains further information on patient safety and errors. 

We have produced a quality systems resource for pharmacy, Pharmacy QS. Its purpose is to introduce quality systems and quality improvement, acting as a hub to the fantastic improvement resources of others, and as a platform for sharing pharmacy experiences in quality improvement. The Quality improvement tools and stories may be particularly useful to consultants.

RPS has a dedicated medicines optimisation hub.

Providing medicines related advice to prescribers

Comprehensive information about medication review can be found in the document, A guide to clinical medication review 2008, published by the National Prescribing Centre.

You might find our Medicines adherence quick reference guide helpful when conducting a clinical medication review.

Consultant pharmacists can improve patient safety through providing support with the safe use of high risk medicines.  

Scottish Patient Safety Programme in Primary Care  aims to reduce events which could cause avoidable harm from healthcare delivered in any primary care setting and has developed a number of tools and resources to support this. The Safer Medicines work stream focuses on the prescribing and monitoring of high risk medicines.

The following resources will support Consultant Pharmacists in monitoring medicines use within their speciality:

Errors and near misses

Professional Standards for the Reporting, Learning, Sharing, Taking Action and Review of Incidents

NHS Safety Thermometer, this “provides a 'temperature check' on harm that can be used alongside other measures of harm to measure local and system progress in providing a care environment free of harm for our patients."

Further information is available on the NHS Safety Thermometer website. The tool is useful for a range of settings including the patient’s own home.

Department of Health has produced guidance to support the NHS in implementing the NHS Safety Thermometer.

Our ultimate guide for chief pharmacists contains information on this which is also useful for consultant pharmacists. 

Research forms a core element of consultant pharmacist posts. Consultant Pharmacists posts form links with higher education institutes. The RPS believes all pharmacy professionals should be supported to engage, support and lead research and to aid professionals in building research and evaluation skills, we have created a Research, Evidence and Evaluation Toolkit (REET).

A key role of Consultant Pharmacists is education. As outlined in the SPS Consultant pharmacist toolkit, you may be supporting those undertaking postgraduate education, you could be supporting pre-registration trainees, foundation pharmacists and advanced pharmacists. The RPS has a number of resources for Tutors to enable you to be a confident, empowered and effective tutor. 

Guidance to support business case development for Consultant Pharmacist Post has information on benefits of the post.

Consultant Pharmacists: support for establishment of posts has information on what the role entails and what consultant pharmacists can offer, as well as information on what current posts have achieved.

The Consultant Pharmacist Toolkit provides details of existing roles and depending on local need this may help decide on posts that may benefit your local population. 

Recognition of posts in England are currently organised by Health Education England through the four Deaneries:

• London and the South East
• Midlands and East
• North
• South

Plans to introduce Consultants Pharmacists to the NHS in Wales were approved in December 2013, further information can be found on the Health in Wales website. 

Benefits of the post are described in Guidance to support business case development.

We have highlighted existing roles earlier in this guidance here.

Specialist Pharmacy Services (SPS) has produced guidance to support understanding of the role and how to establish a post:  Consultant Pharmacists: support for establishment of posts. This includes information on what the role entails and what consultant pharmacists can offer, as well as information on what current posts have achieved.

Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA), could help identify any local priorities. The Department of Health have produced Pharmaceutical needs Assessments Information Pack for local authority Health and Wellbeing Boards. In Scotland a resource pack is available to support pharmaceutical care planning 

The Consultant Pharmacist Toolkit recommends identifying objectives from local organisation and/or national directives that are potentially met by the role.