You are more than four years post qualification and you have worked clinically as a pharmacist in primary care, hospital, GP Practice or other relevant clinical setting for more than three years. You will have considerable demonstrable experience and numerous additional postgraduate qualifications.
You are working as a GP Practice pharmacist under one of the UK NHS Clinical Pharmacist in GP Practice schemes, or directly for a GP practice (either as an employee of the practice or through your Primary Care Organisation).
You are employed in a specialist pharmacist role and your job specification will reflect this seniority. Your responsibilities will extend beyond clinical practice to include;
- Research
- Innovation
- Clinical leadership
- Educating others
- Influencing policy and guidelines
You practice at the highest level of autonomy and clinical leadership. You are likely to be practicing in a limited number of clinical areas employed in a specialist pharmacist role and your job specification will reflect this seniority. Consequently, other healthcare professionals to include GPs, recognising your expertise are likely to be coming to you for clinical advice and guidance.
As a Specialised Level Practitioner, you may be taking responsibility for supervising or mentoring the work of other pharmacists.
Typically, for a large proportion of your working activities, you will be managing patients with highly complex, severe conditions with acute exacerbations or complications. You will frequently be working outside of guidelines. Consequently, whilst you recognise that it may be good practice to do so, it may not be realistic as a Specialised Level Practitioner, to secure the approval of the changes that you make to a patients medication form another suitably qualified healthcare professional.
You recognise the ethical requirement for you to be working within the boundaries of your competency and the need to continuously develop your knowledge at all times. The boundaries of your competency will be much more extensive than when you were an Intern, Basic or Advanced Level Practitioner and you will regularly review and update these boundaries. We have provided a Boundaries of Clinical Practice Statement template that you may wish to use.
Helping you choose your level of competency in clinical practice
How would your describe the level of your practice?
Miller G. Academic Medicine. September Supplement 1990.