Pharmacy Technicians are pharmacy professionals who play an integral part in helping patients to make the most of their medicines. Their primary role is in supporting the Clinical pharmacists in the delivery of clinical pharmacy services.
They perform medicines improvement work to maximise safe, cost-effective best practice in prescribing under the supervision of the Clinical Pharmacist/s, assisting with medication safety monitoring systems (e.g., high-risk drugs) and liaising with clinicians and administrative staff to resolve medicine-related queries.
Pharmacy Technicians monitor practice prescribing and adherence to the PCN’s and Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS) policies, including any other local and national prescribing policies and guidelines. They improve service and quality through mechanisms such as audits.
Some of their chief duties are in supporting the Clinical Pharmacists in Structured Medication Reviews. Undertaking patient-supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use through shared decision-making. Supporting medicine reconciliation of patients whose care is transferred back into primary care in a timely and effective manner liaising with clinical and non-clinical staff along with patients and other providers to ensure patients receive appropriate medication post discharge and implementing electronic repeat dispensing (eRD) where possible.
The knowledge and skills of Pharmacy Technicians are widely recognised, and as registered professionals, Pharmacy Technicians are responsible and accountable for their own accurate and safe practice.
Our Pharmacy Technician‘s
Jennifer Vose
Jennifer’s pharmacy career started in 2012 when she trained as a Pharmacy Technician at George Eliot Hospital for a year gaining a BTEC and NVQ level 3. From there she moved to community pharmacy (Boots) in 2013 where she was able to quickly progress and completed Boots Accuracy Checking qualification in 2016 becoming an Accuracy Checking Pharmacy Technician.
Jennifer enjoyed this job but once her children were starting school and preschool, she felt that she would like to try a new challenge and so in 2022 started her first job as a PCN Pharmacy Technician and finished the CPPE Primary Care Pathway in 2023. Moving into a PCN Jennifer has found it very different to her previous positions as she is able to use more clinical knowledge and feels like she can make more of a difference to patients.
Her main work within her previous role was high risk drug monitoring and supporting the Clinical Pharmacists with initiating lipid lowering therapy. She has worked within this new role for around 18 months but has relocated to be closer to home.
Jennifer officially began working for the North Arden PCN in April 2024. She is excited that this role is still new which gives her the opportunity to work with practice staff to develop the role. She has really enjoyed doing project-based work in her previous PCN but is enthusiastic to develop her skillset further improving patient care, building a strong relationship with our team and continuing to build on her professional development.
Susan Thould
Susan joined us as at the North Arden PCN as a Pharmacy Technician in July 2024 with over 20 years’ experience behind her. Prior to this she worked in community pharmacy, a less clinical position.
Her training for this position began when she started in pharmacy on a YTS scheme in Bridlington in 1986. Susan stayed there for 3 years, before getting a job with a local chain of pharmacies (about 30 pharmacies in the Northeast) where she stayed for a further 3 years mostly doing dispensary work.
In 1992 Susan decided it was time to leave Bridlington and head to Banbury and was a live-in nanny for a year, whereupon she met her husband and moved to Nuneaton. She soon headed back into pharmacy as a dispensary assistant with the Co-op Pharmacy in Bedworth in 1994 where she stayed for 18 months before getting a pharmacy job nearer to home in 1996 with an Independent Pharmacy.
During this time Susan trained and qualified via the NPA as a Pharmacy technician passing in January 2001. Eventually the independent owner retired and the pharmacy, after a couple of changes, became a very well-known large High Street Pharmacy. This was a very busy pharmacy which dispensed lots of items, gaining Susan a great deal of experience including in recent years providing private flu jabs and Blood pressure services. During this time, she was the patient safety champion and received many positive customer feedback responses and through her varied experiences Susan has developed excellent customer service skills which helps to make her patients feel at ease.
Susan loves helping patients in any way she can (patient facing or otherwise) and is delighted by the opportunity to expand her skills and gain more clinical knowledge to better care for her patients. She is excited about her future with our PCN and seeing where it takes her.