Grade A - £52,737 (National Framework) or £58,409 per annum (London Framework – if you are London office based or homebased and live within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £581 per annum for those working from home
Contracted Hours: Full time 37 hours per week. Part Time/condensed hours will be considered - min. 4 days per week.
Contract Type: Secondment/FTC for 23 months
Location: Home based within the North of England.
Please note: This role will include regular travel within the North Region.
Assessment Date: Tuesday 22 July 2025
Assessment Process And Venue
Interviews will be part of a face to face assessment centre, this will include a written assessment and an interview. The venue for the assessment centre will be Manchester.
Closing date: Sunday 6 July 2025 at 11:59pm
This role is NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.
Are you committed to helping us regulate health and social care within England?
When thinking about what drives you every day in your job, what keeps you motivated and passionate about your work what comes to mind? For 3000+ people at the CQC we end each day knowing that we have made a difference to the lives of those most in need in our communities. We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and encourage care services to improve. We are looking for people who are caring, demonstrate integrity and work well as part of a team to join with us and share in this sense of achievement. If you would like to help us make a positive impact to health and social care within England, then read on.
Why this could be a great role for you...
As a Pharmacist Specialist with significant experience in mental health, you’ll be part of a dynamic Medicines Optimisation Team providing specialist advice and expert knowledge to support inspection, registration and risk management across the organisation. You will be leading and promoting CQC’s medicines optimisation agenda in all health and social care services.
What We Can Offer You...
- 27 days’ annual leave, rising with service to 32.5 days, plus 8 Bank Holidays
- NHS pension scheme, with around a 14% employer contribution
- Free employee assistance service 24 hours a day
- Discounts to supermarkets, high street stores, electronics and fleet cars
- Discounted gym vouchers
- Cycle to work scheme
- Internal reward scheme where you could win a voucher or two!
- Equipment for homeworking
We want to support you to succeed and be your very best, with opportunities for training and development along with the support of experienced managers and mentors.
We want to make working for CQC a great experience for everyone, and to role model a diverse and representative culture. To support an inclusive environment where colleagues feel empowered to bring their whole self to work, we support a variety of staff networks, including the Race Equality Network, LGBT+ Equality Network, Carers Equality Network, Disability Equality Network and Gender Equality network.
What You Will Bring...
With excellent leadership and communication, you will proactively take the lead in specifically allocated areas to support and advise inspections teams in predicting, identifying and prioritising medicines risks. You will routinely provide training and support for CQC representatives for issues relating to medicines optimisation and actively engage with key external stakeholders to promote the safe management of medicines.
We are looking for a specialist pharmacist with expertise in mental health. You should have experience of effectively influencing mental health services and policy to drive medicines optimisation. You will have successfully led change in mental health settings, demonstrating integrity and professionalism when responding to challenge to ensure patient care is at the heart of your approach.
Pharmacist Specialist Job Description
Please refer to the job description for a full list of essential skills and experience - click on the link below:
For an informal discussion or further information on the role, please contact Simon Hill, Regional Medicines Manager at
[email protected] or Celia Osuagwa, Regional Medicines Manager at
[email protected]Individual adjustments...
We are committed to being open and transparent around our processes and we endeavour to offer every candidate the opportunity to perform at their best throughout the recruitment process. We seek to support candidates to identify potential challenges and work with them to identify and facilitate reasonable adjustments as appropriate. Should you require assistance and/or would like to request a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, please contact a member of the team via email:
[email protected]
CQC is committed to promoting a fair and inclusive workplace where all our people can flourish and reach their full potential. We know diverse teams allow for a more creative and productive environment and therefore encourage applications from everyone regardless of: age, gender/sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
For this role, we are particularly encouraging people from ethnically diverse communities and people with a disability to apply, who are currently under-represented at this level in the organisation.
Candidates must ensure that all information provided in their application is detailed in their own words and is factually accurate. Any examples provided must be taken from personal experience. CQC abides by honesty and integrity as part of its core values, if evidence of plagiarism or generating answers from other sources is found, applications may be withdrawn.
Our Values
Excellence – Meeting our challenge to be a high-performing organisation
Caring – Treating everyone with dignity and respect
Integrity – Demonstrating our passion for ‘doing the right thing’
Teamwork – Enabling us to be the best we can 
