Advanced Clinical Pharmacist – Mental Health

OUR VALUES IN ACTION

• Care and Compassion
• Quality and Teamwork
• Dignity and Respect
• Openness, honesty and responsibility
  
  

An exciting opportunity exists to join our mental health pharmacy team. The team is based at Borders General Hospital Campus in Melrose but will also provide care to patients in the community setting as part of the psychiatry multidisciplinary team (MDT). Your role within the MDT and pharmacy teams is to lead, develop and provide clinical pharmacy services in these specialist areas as well as supporting the delivery of regional and national programmes.

This is an opportunity to bring your ideas and influence to our current clinical pharmacy service and enable us to continue to maximise the potential for patient centred care and support our implementation of Achieving Excellence within the mental health speciality.

You will be a reflective practitioner with the necessary level of therapeutic knowledge, practical skills and diverse experience to provide high quality patient-centred care. Good team working and interpersonal skills are essential along with the ability to provide professional leadership to take forward service development and ensure the continued success and response of our service to the changing, and challenging, healthcare environment.

As part of our clinical team, you will work closely with multidisciplinary staff and also contribute to the developing role of our clinical technicians and pharmacy support staff. You will promote robust medicines governance, patient safety initiatives and future developments such as electronic medicines management

We are looking for a pharmacist with a good base of general clinical knowledge and keen to specialise in psychiatry, a post foundation RPS accreditation (or equivalent) and ideally an Independent Prescriber qualification.

Candidates should provide original and authentic responses to all questions within the application form. The use of artificial intelligence (AI), automated tools, or other third-party assistance to generate, draft, or significantly modify responses is strongly discouraged. By submitting your application, you confirm that all answers are your own work, reflect your personal knowledge, skills and experience, and have not been solely produced or altered by AI or similar technologies. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in your application being withdrawn from the application process.

For enquiries please contact: Kyna Harvey (Lead Pharmacist) on Kyna.Harvey@nhs.scot Tel: 01896 827702 (Tue-Thur)

As from 1st April 2026, the Agenda for Change full-time working week will be reducing from 37 to 36 hours per week. Part time hours will be reduced pro-rata. However, there will be a corresponding increase in the hourly rate so that pay will not be affected.

Due to legislative changes from 1 April 2025, this post may require a different level of criminal records check done than is currently the case. If the post is assessed as a "regulated role", your appointment will be subject to joining the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme. If there is any change to what is currently required, this will be confirmed by either the Hiring Manager or the Recruitment Team. For more details on these changes please visit: Disclosure Scotland Changes.

To work in the United Kingdom, there is a legal requirement for an individual to demonstrate that they have the relevant permission to work in the country. This permission is, without exception, granted by the UK Visa and Immigrations Service.

As part of the pre-employment checks for a preferred candidate, NHS Scotland Boards will check your entitlement to work in the UK. It can be evidenced through a number of routes including specific types of visa as well as EU settled and pre-settled status. To find out more about these routes of permission, please refer to the GOV.UK website here. 

For specific types of post, if you do not have the necessary eligibility to work in the UK, it might be possible (though not guaranteed) to secure sponsorship via a UK Skilled Worker/Health & Care Worker Visa. However, this is only possible if the employer is a licenced Sponsor, and if the post does not fall below the current minimum salary threshold or ‘going rate’. Further information on these criteria can be found here.

It is ESSENTIAL that you have checked that you either already have an appropriate right to work in the UK or that the post would be eligible to be sponsored BEFORE submitting your application form.

• PLEASE NOTE: We cannot accept late applications so please ensure your application is submitted early***
  
  

NHS Scotland is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce and eliminating unlawful discrimination. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. To this end, NHS Scotland welcomes applications from all sections of society.