OTC company Omega Pharma has made the novel move of acquiring a community pharmacy in order to gain a greater understanding of pharmacy on the frontline. Asha Fowells finds out more

Many years ago, a television advertisement featured the tagline “I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company”. What made the ad so memorable was the fact that the declaration was completely true: Victor Kiam, a former salesman, had indeed purchased Remington after his wife bought him his first electric shaver.

The same could perhaps be said of Omega Pharma. The company’s products – which include Lyclear, Solpadeine, Beconase, Nytol, XLS-Medical and Bronchostop – grace the shelves of pharmacies up and down the country, but the OTC medicines manufacturer recently decided that it liked pharmacy so much, it wanted one. And so, in August this year, it went ahead and bought one.

While this might seem an unusual thing to do, ownership gives Omega Pharma the opportunity to gather first-hand information on how the local community uses the pharmacy. What people like, the services they would like to see, any improvements they feel can be made, even the amount of time they spend in the pharmacy during a visit can all be recorded without influencing customer behaviour in the way that other research methods might.

Omega Pharma UK’s general manager Neil Lister says the data gathered will be analysed and then used to remodel the pharmacy so it best suits the needs of the people who use it.

Local landmark

The pharmacy where this will be taking place is no quiet, backstreet shop. Warman-Freed Pharmacy is one of the longest standing businesses in Golders Green, North London, and has a staff of 30.

Simon Warman-Freed, nephew of the original 1950s’ owner, comments: “My uncle had a great vision for Warman- Freed, truly wanting to help make people’s lives better. People don’t just get ill in normal working hours and by extending the opening time until midnight each day, including weekends and bank holidays, he was able create a pharmacy offering that became central to the local community.

“When Omega Pharma made us aware about this venture my family were really impressed with their commitment to better serving the local area in addition to supporting the pharmacy profession as a whole.”

Not all plain sailing

A few months on, and superintendent pharmacist Liam Stapleton says although the transition in ownership has been reasonably smooth, it hasn’t all been plain sailing.

“We’ve overcome a number of challenges, including working with the NHS and EPS to ensure there were no breaks in service for our patients. We’ve also had a long list of operational jobs to work through.

“Much of our investment in the first few months has been about making sure the building blocks for success are in place; getting supplier relationships right, aligning processes and establishing the right team.”

Instituting a solid baseline was of the utmost importance in order to demonstrate the impact of any changes, explains Liam. “We have been creating data streams from our EPoS and dispensary systems and looking at information that is freely available about the local community. We have installed technology that will help us track customer shopping behaviours in the pharmacy.

“We are also just about to start some survey work with the local community and those involved in local healthcare provision to provide some baseline perception information about pharmacy in general as well as Warman-Freed specifically. This will give us a very clear understanding of where we are now, which will be vital for us to measure against our future performance.”

Short-term priorities include consolidating the delivery of nationally and locally commissioned services in order to assess which private services might also work. The retail space is not being ignored, with careful consideration being given to the product ranges stocked, and how they are positioned and merchandised.

Liam adds: “A key focus in 2015 will be redesigning the pharmacy to further enhance the existing offering of retail and professional services. We will be exploring how we can zone the store and looking for ways to make the offering more bespoke to suit the needs of the different types of customers that use the pharmacy at different times of the day.

“This will all feed into our longer-term plan of developing best practice tools and recommendations that other independently-owned pharmacies might wish to implement.”

The intent is laudable and the passion tangible, and if Omega experiences even a fraction of the success that Remington enjoyed – Victor Kiam made his fortune and was heralded as one of the entrepreneurs of the last century – the company and community pharmacy as a whole look set to benefit from one of the more unusual and interesting pharmacy acquisitions of recent times.