Pharmacy roles across Wakefield's PCNs - opportunity and impact
Today is World Pharmacists Day and it’s an opportunity to celebrate the pharmacy professionals working across Wakefield’s Primary Care Networks (PCNs). From managing complex medicines to supporting patients with long-term conditions, pharmacy teams play an increasingly important role in delivering care close to home.
A growing workforce in primary care
Pharmacy teams are now a core part of general practice. Clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians help patients get the most from their medicines, support safer prescribing, and reduce pressure on other areas of the healthcare system.
What our workforce data shows
Headcount data from six Wakefield PCNs (Brigantes, Pontefract, THG, Wakefield North, Wakefield South and West Wakefield) highlights the breadth of pharmacy roles across the district.
Pharmacy workforce headcount by role across Wakefield’s six PCNs.
Pharmacy careers in primary care are continuing to expand, with more specialist and leadership roles such as pharmacist independent prescribers, advanced clinical practitioners and pharmacy technician team leaders.
More than medicines
Pharmacy staff provide:
- Reviews of medicines for patients with complex health needs
- Support for the management of long-term conditions
- Reconciling medicines after hospital discharge
- Improvements to prescribing safety and quality
- Support to care homes and repeat prescribing services
- Direct patient consultations (depending on role and area)
A career with many pathways
Our workforce data demonstrates the variety of opportunities available within primary care pharmacy, from technical and operational roles through to advanced clinical and leadership positions.
To bring these roles to life, we spoke to Ed Fearns, Clinical Services and Business Manager and Independent Prescribing Clinical Pharmacist at Trinity Health Group PCN, about his career journey and his experience of working in primary care pharmacy
Ed's story
I started my pharmacy career in 2012 as a counter assistant in a local community pharmacy. I then went to Liverpool John Moores University in 2014 to study for my MPharm, completing placements across a variety of areas of pharmacy before deciding that community pharmacy was where I wanted to do my pre-registration year.
I qualified as a pharmacist in 2019 and continued working in community pharmacy, working across a number of branches. I particularly enjoyed the variety of working across different branches, including going into struggling pharmacies and helping to improve how they operated. This gave me an interest not only in the clinical side of pharmacy, but also in the business and operational side – how teams work, how services are delivered and how you can make a pharmacy perform better. It was a great foundation in patient care, clinical decision-making and leadership, but over time I became increasingly interested in how pharmacists could contribute more directly to patient care and the wider clinical team.
In 2020, after a busy start to my career, I moved into primary care and joined Trinity Health Group PCN as a Clinical Pharmacist. This was where my career really started to develop in a different direction. I became involved in structured medication reviews, complex prescribing, medicines optimisation and supporting wider clinical teams. I also completed the CPPE Primary Care Education Pathway and, in 2023, qualified as an Independent Prescriber.
Over time, my role evolved beyond medicines optimisation. I became increasingly involved in clinical supervision, workforce development, service redesign and clinical governance. In 2024, I took on the role of Clinical Services Manager, overseeing clinical services and a multidisciplinary team across four practices.
More recently, I have taken on the additional role of PCN Business Manager, combining clinical and operational leadership. I now work across areas including workforce planning, finance, governance, service development and the transition towards neighbourhood working.
Looking back, one of the things I value most about pharmacy is the scope it gives you to develop. My career has taken me from starting out behind the counter in community pharmacy, to clinical practice in primary care and now into leadership and service transformation. It is a career path I certainly wouldn’t have predicted when I first started my degree at LJMU.
For me, World Pharmacists Day is a great opportunity to celebrate the contribution pharmacists make every day, while also recognising the huge range of opportunities available within the profession and the role pharmacists can play in shaping the future of healthcare.
Thank you to our pharmacy teams
On World Pharmacists Day, we would like to thank every pharmacist, pharmacy technician and wider pharmacy professional working across Wakefield’s PCNs for the expertise, dedication and patient care they provide every day.
Check out our Working for Us page to see if we have any Pharmacy vacancies.