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Pharmacy Department
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for interest in the post of Student Pharmacy Technician.
Please find enclosed a copy of the job description and a pack of information describing the Pharmacy departments and the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS
Trust. This includes changes in the structure within pharmacy to meet the new managements in the trust.
Please email me jane.pyatt@ouh.nhs.uk
or call me on 01865 221109 at the John
Radcliffe Hospital or 01295 229010 at the Horton hospital, if you would like more information or to discuss the posts in more detail or if you would like to arrange a visit.
Yours Sincerely,
Jane Pyatt
Practitioner Development Technician.
Contents
Job Description
Person Specification
Pharmacy Technician Information
Technician Structured Career Progression
Information about the Pharmacy Department

Pharmacy Technicians
What is a pharmacy technician?
An essential member of the pharmacy team working under the supervision of a pharmacist, to provide pharmaceutical care for the patient. The duties are varied, and it is not simply a matter of counting tablets. Many new skills will be learned.
How do I become a pharmacy technician?
The nationally recognised recommended qualification is the NVQ Diploma in
Pharmacy Service Skills level 3 QCF and a Btec/Technical Certificate in
Pharmacy Services. This is achieved by completing an E-learning package with
Buttercup Training and completing an e-portfolio on line for the NVQ, which will be done in house. The NVQ is attained in-house through continued workplace assessments.
What qualifications do I need for entry onto the course?
5 GCSE ’s of C or above: Maths, English, Science or equivalent. Occupational experience may be used as an alternative to these requirements eg. NVQ Level
2 in Pharmacy Services.
Are there any other requirements?
There are some personal characteristics
Essential Desirable
Good attention to detail
Able to work as part of a team
Good communication skills
Numerate
Basic computer skills
Basic knowledge of pharmacy
Well organised
Self motivated
Sense of humour
Professional approach
Smart appearance
No age limit is specified. Many entrants start from school, though mature students are very welcome also.

What are the duties of a qualified technician?
Depending on your grade, experience and place of employment your duties could involve a variety of the following. You will gain experience of most of these during your training period.
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Dispensing medicines from prescriptions written by doctors, dentists or vets.
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Manufacturing medicines not available from commercial sources
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Preparing sterile medicines, for example, injections and intravenous feeds
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Assessment of stock drugs and their distribution to wards and departments within the hospital and outlying units.
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Quality Control and Quality Assurance within the Pharmaceutical Service.
Testing drugs purchased from suppliers to ensure that they conform to standards laid down by authorities.
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Patient Counselling. Advising patients or their carers on how and when the medication should be taken or used.
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Responsibility for the management of a section within the pharmacy department.
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Purchasing of drugs
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Medicines Information. Collecting and collating information on drugs from a variety of sources including medical journals and reference books in order to advise other health professionals as necessary.
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Education and Training. Teaching other members of pharmacy staff, particularly student technicians and helping qualified staff to further their career development.
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Managing the supply of drugs to nursing homes.
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Auditing of pharmacy related data.
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Advising the general public on health promotion issues.
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Medicines Management Technician. Working closely with the ward staff, ward pharmacist and the patients to enable reuse of the patient’s own medicines and
28-day supply of all current medicines.
The aim of your two years’ training is to enable you to complete the above duties as a qualified technician.

Where could I work?
On successful completion of your college course you can follow a number of career paths including
A Hospital Pharmacy Department
Community Pharmacy
Armed Forces
Prison service
Pharmaceutical Industry
Primary Care Groups/ Trusts
General Practitioner’s surgery where patient’ medication is dispensed on the premises
Colleges of Further Education/Universities, which provide training courses in
Pharmacy
Private Hospitals
Private Companies e.g. Computer Company’s specialising in Pharmacy
Computer Packages
You can even travel abroad.

What about the E- Learning package?
This is also completed over two years, students will be given an hour and a half every morning to study using the e-learning package. The E-learning package comes from Buttercup Training and covers the same subjects as the college course.
Assessment is also continuous and includes assignments, homework, practical exercises and phase tests.
The NVQ
The NVQ
– What does it all mean?
Up to the late 1970’s, the UK had a rigid system of schooling and training. Young people would enter the education system at around 5 years of age and change schools at about 11 years of age. The type of secondary school very much rested on the outcome of one single examination. Those who passed would be expected to go onto college or university whereas those who didn’t would be expected to leave school at 16 to 18 and go straight into work. A number may go onto win apprenticeships to train in craft skills ranging from welding to hairdressing, and on completion of this training would be given a certificate to recognise these skills.
However, there were millions who left school with few, if any qualifications, entering a world of work which would offer little or no training, no opportunity to develop themselves and no recognition for any competencies they did develop.
The traditional apprenticeship system started to collapse. Young people failed to find training, skill shortages arose, businesses, the national economy and the
UK’s competitiveness suffered. It was clear that something had to be done.
In 1981 the Manpower Services Commission made its first statement about competence- based standards and qualifications, published ‘A New Training
Initiative’. Two of the main themes of this document were about occupational standards and young people. From that point, the UK started to develop occupational standards within each industry, with each industry taking responsibility for itself.
Also in the early 1980’s, unemployment amongst young people was becoming a serious issue. The existing programme for youth training, funded by the government, had been expanded but could still only offer uncertificated training, which left employers unsure of what these potential employees could actually do,
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and the trainees often unable to convince employers about the depth, range and quality of what they had learned.
A system was needed that would recognise the skills people already had, and that was consistent, reliable and well structured. It would allow the skills-base of the country and success in upskilling the whole of the national workforce to be measure. Qualifications needed to be realistic and accessible with scope for progression – and people needed to feel part of the process.
In 1986 the Government established the National Council for Vocational
Qualifications (NCVQ) – (now the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, (QCA) to set up a comprehensive framework of vocational qualifications covering all occupations and industries.
The qualifications needed to be flexible, widely recognised by industry, comprehensive, rigorously assessed, coherent and voluntary – so National
Vocational Qualifications (NVQ ‘s) were created.
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What organisations are responsible for the development, implementation and regulation of NVQ’s?
National Training Organisations or Sector Skills Councils are organisations that represent particular areas of employment and develop (National) Occupational
Standards (N)OS for different work roles within their particular employment sectors. If these (N)OS’s are to become qualifications they have to include an assessment strategy, which has to be approved by the relevant regulator. Only then can Awarding Bodies SUCH AS Edexcel offer them as NVQ’s. The regulators inspect the provision of NVQ’s e.g. QCA for England and Northern
Ireland, ACCAC for Wales and SQ
A for SVQ’s in Scotland.
What is competence-based qualification?
A competence based qualification (NVQs) demands that candidates prove that they can carry out activities to the national minimum standard identified for competent practice. Candidates are assessed in the workplace as they carry out their normal work role.
It is a little bit like the driving test when you have to actually show you can drive the car in all sorts of different conditions to the standards set. Its not enough to explain how to drive the car alone, you have to prove you have the skills and the knowledge to allow you to actually drive safely. An NVQ is a lot more complicated but it’s the same combination of proving that skills and knowledge can be applied to different situations in the workplace in order to be judged as a competent practitioner.
What is an NVQ assessment centre and what are the different roles within it?
If an organisation or employer wishes to offer NVQ awards to its trainees or employees they have to gain approval from an awarding body such as Edexcel before they can do this.
There are two types of approval, one is as an assessment centre and the other is for the particular award/s that the organisation wants to offer.
This involves submitting an application to the awarding body, which is then scrutinized, to ensure that the centre understands the requirements, has the required policies and procedures in place and is sufficiently resourced to be able to support candidates through the assessment process. The centre will be monitored every six months by a representative of the awarding body (external verifier) who, amongst other things, checks to ensure that the centre can still meet the criteria for approval.
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The different roles in an assessment centre are:
Candidate
An NVQ candidate is the person being assessed. They must be registered with an awarding body before they start their NVQ assessment.
Assessors
An NVQ assessor must be competent in the area of work being assessed. They must train and qualify as an NVQ assessor by gaining units D32/33 or A1. They plan, review and finally make a judgement about the candidate’s competence and are responsible to the awarding body for ensuring that assessment is undertaken as required.
Workplace Manager
Workplace managers must support the plan for candidates to achieve an NVQ. It is important they know if there are any barriers to a candidate’s progress in the workplace as they will be able to help. It is important that assessors keep them informed about candidate progress.
Internal Verifiers
Internal Verifiers are very experience in operating NVQ qualifications and can therefore advise and support assessors as well as verifying that the assessment has been carried out properly. Before assessors qualify the Internal Verifier will verify every unit assessed by a novice assessor. Once qualified they will only check a sample of units from each assessor.
Lead Internal Verifiers
Some centres have a team of Internal Verifiers for different awards. One experience Internal Verifier will take responsibility for co-ordinating and standardising the team’s activity.
The NVQ is achieved inhouse as the Pharmacy Department have their own NVQ centre. The NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) is assessed by assessors within the workplace, and by the students gathering evidence to show they can perform certain tasks as well as having the underpinning knowledge to know how and why we perform certain tasks in certain ways.
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We also aim to give all students, where possible, a morning each fortnight to collect evidence for your portfolio, although we do expect students to revise for exams in their own spare time.
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What are the career prospects?
Depending on the area of pharmacy in which you are employed these can vary.
Within the hospital service there are five grades of Pharmacy Technicians plus the trainee grade. Starting at Band level 4 progressing to Band level 8. It is possible to progress through the various grades depending on experience and availability of vacant positions.
A Band 4 is usually a newly qualified pharmacy technician who is still in a rotational post gaining experience under supervision.
A Band 5 is an experienced technician. They can be rotational or in a fixed role in a department. Usually at this point a technician would be thinking about which department they would like to specialise in.
A Band 6 is a senior technician within a specialist/management role with specific individual responsibilities.
A Band 7 is a management grade co-ordinating posts other technical and pharmacist staff as an operational manager of an entire pharmacy section.
A Band 8 is a management grade but often they have business responsibilities for the pharmacy and work with the chief pharmacists as well as being operational managers.
Grade Current Salary
Band 4 £18,838 – 22,016
Band 5 £21,388 – 27,901
Band 6
£25,783 – 34,530
Band 7 £30,764 – 40,558
Band 8
£39,239 – 47,088
Approximate length of time at this grade
1 -2 years
1 – 3 years
1
– 4 years
3 years+
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General Description of Areas of Pharmacy Services
Dispensary
There is a dispensary on each site providing accurate, safe and timely dispensing and distribution of medications both to in-patients and outpatients. Outpatients are counselled on the use of their medications. The dispensary services are linked across the four sites to ensure co-ordinated development.
Clinical Pharmacy
Pharmaceutical care is channelled through our clinical pharmacists based at both ward and dispensary level. By reviewing the drug charts they aim to prevent potential medication problems and identify and resolve actual medication related problems. A pharmacist to check the doses, interactions, suitability and appropriateness of prescribed medication visits all wards on each site on a daily basis. A good working relationship exists with doctors, nurses and other health care professionals. We have specialist clinical pharmacists who work very closely with clinical centres offering specialist advice on the economic use of drugs. The departments work together to provide the best pharmaceutical care for patients.
Medicines Information
Based at the John Radcliffe site this unit deals with a large number of queries each month and provides accurate, unbiased, evaluated and up to date information on medications and therapies. It also maintains the Trust Formulary.
Purchasing /Distribution
There are distribution services on all sites, which ensure that wards and departments are
‘topped-up’ on at least a weekly basis and that stock lists are regularly reviewed. The ordering departments at the JR, Horton and RI ensure that all pharmaceuticals are purchased in an economic manner and that the quality is of a high standard.
Aseptic Services
From September 2001, an external company – Baxter Healthcare, will provide the
 service. The unit is based on the Churchill site and provides cytotoxic drugs, intravenous additives, prefilled syringes and total parenteral nutrition fluids ready for use on patients
Medicines Management Service
This is a service where Band 5 technicians work as part of a team on the wards providing a 28day supply of the patient’s medicines, checking the patient’s medicines that they have brought in from home.
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