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A pharmacy with the 'X' factor

A pharmacy with the 'X' factor

Brook Pharmacy shows that innovation is all about fulfilling local needs and making the most of your team, as Charlotte Rixon reports

It is not hard to see why Brook Pharmacy on Queens Road in Halifax received the Best Independent Community Pharmacy Healthcare Innovation Award at the SMART Awards 2014. The pharmacy, which was one of the first in West Yorkshire to become a healthy living pharmacy (HLP), provides a vast range of innovative services that are tailored to the needs of the local community and delivered by a dedicated, highly trained and multilingual team.

Natural fit

Brook Pharmacy was the first independent business to join the Pharmacy Care Plus group, which was founded by director Robert Andrew and super-intendent pharmacist Devendra Shah in 2008, and now includes nine pharmacies across northern England.

From the start, it was Robert and Dev's intention to engage with local populations, focus on service provision, and offer extensive training opportunities and a nurturing environment for staff. So it seemed like a natural fit for Brook Pharmacy to join the HLP scheme as soon as West Yorkshire was named as a pathfinder site. In July 2012, the pharmacy took it one step further and successfully attained the second level of HLP service accreditation, which focuses more on the prevention of ill health and requires deeper levels of service and training.

According to Robert, the HLP programme has given the pharmacy group €an impetus and a structure to deepen and broaden the range of services we were already providing€. The impact on the community, he says, has been €far-reaching€.

Among Brook Pharmacy's impressively wide service offering is a novel, locally commissioned care homes medicines governance advice service. Initiated by the local area team and LPC, the service is delivered by pharmacist and pharmacy manager, Sandra Cooper, who has worked at the pharmacy for 15 years. Sandra regularly visited 10 care homes in the Calderdale area to help assess their practices and standards with regard to patient care and medicines management. Through providing constructive feedback and working co-operatively with care home staff, Sandra and her team have helped to drive up care standards.

Local needs

Developed to reflect the needs of the local area, which includes poor health indicators and some high levels of deprivation, services available include Care at the Chemist, flu vaccinations, chlamydia screening, EHC, pregnancy testing, a head lice treatment scheme, smoking cessation, BP testing, diabetes screening and weight management with Lipotrim. In addition, a supervised methadone and buprenorphine consumption service, together with needle and syringe exchange, is provided discreetly at a private advice point, while alcohol dependency advice is also on offer.

€There are significant health problems in the area,€ says Robert, €but above all, the local community wants a professional but discreet service and patients really value being able to speak in confidence. The advice point puts people at ease, as they know they are not being overlooked€.

Many services, such as diabetes testing, weight loss advice and blood pressure monitoring, are offered free of charge to increase their accessibility. Despite this, the pharmacy's service revenue has shown dramatic growth year-on-year, while prescription dispensing numbers have increased by over 10 per cent in the same period. Patient satisfaction surveys also clearly indicate that the pharmacy is doing something right, with 100 per cent of patients feeling 'fairly' or 'very satisfied' with the staff, store and services in the 2013-14 questionnaire.

Hard work

Robert attributes the success of these services to the efforts of Dev €“ who, as chair of Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire, has worked hard to help all pharmacies in the area to engage and build lasting relationships with commissioners and other healthcare professionals €“ as well as the commitment of the whole pharmacy team. Robert also credits the LPC, which has a strong executive team, headed by CEO Robbie Turner, and HLP project manager, Nigel Hughes.

The majority of the staff have worked at Brook Pharmacy for many years and are on friendly terms with many of the regular customers. Since joining the HLP programme, the team has undergone extensive training to ensure that they have the confidence to discuss sensitive health matters with patients discreetly, while two members of staff have qualified as healthy living champions.

€It has required an extra effort to get traction for the new services and the staff have worked really hard, attending training sessions out-of-hours,€ says Robert. €They have improved their technical and patient-questioning knowledge, as well as their soft skills, such as approaching customers and winning their trust and confidence.€

The team has been supported to specialise in areas where they have the most strengths and interest. For example, accuracy checking technician Rehana Rasool, who is fluent in Urdu, looks after the smoking cessation service and recognised an opportunity to help local smokers kick the habit during Ramadan.

Brook's delivery drivers, Tariq and Jo, have also demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile for patients and, on various occasions, have raised the alarm when elderly patients have not opened the door to receive their medicines as arranged.

Busy and welcoming

The first thing that strikes you on entering Brook Pharmacy is how busy it is and how welcoming the staff are (writes Richard Thomas pictured above with the Brook Pharmacy team). The pharmacy is clearly the hub of the local community, which has a large south Asian and eastern European population.

It is well staffed, and needs to be. The pharmacy provides a comprehensive range of clinical and wellness services and there was a constant throng of people receiving attention on the day I visited. Pharmacist manager Sandra, who calmly directs operations amid the hustle and bustle from the centre of the dispensary, is always available to talk to patients yet happy to delegate as much as she can to her team. €It's the only way,€ she smiles, when I ask how she manages to keep on top of it all.

Services central

Service provision is a central component of the business strategy. €We'll give anything a go if it fulfils a need and are happy to trial services to prove a concept if that is what's required,€ says Dev. €We're fortunate that both pharmacy contractors and commissioners in this part of West Yorkshire are very progressive in their thinking.€

As if to prove this point, two ladies from the public health department of the local authority came into the pharmacy to enquire about setting up a Walking for Health scheme to operate from Brook. Needless to say, the pharmacy was happy to oblige.

Adjacent to Brook Pharmacy, across a side-street, stands a 100-hour pharmacy that opened some 18 months ago. Surely that must have had an impact on the business? €Yes, it did,€ Robert replies honestly, €but we had no control over what happened. All we could do was to refocus on the quality and range of our services and make sure we went the extra mile to meet our customers' expectations. It was a case of co-existing peacefully and competing vigorously. We are delighted with our pharmacy's progress.€

Magnificent seven

The team is clearly well motivated and takes great pride in their work. Most live in the community and readily utilise their local knowledge.

Neither are they afraid to come up with innovative new ideas. For instance, aware that the local population has a higher-than-average incidence of diabetes, with the children in particular often being given sweets by their relatives, the pharmacy had turned the front of its medicines counter into an impromptu fruit and veg display. €It's a fantastic way of proactively getting across the healthy eating message,€ said Robert. €Full credit to the team for thinking of it.€

That day researchers from University College London had recommended eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day instead of five, saying it was healthier and would prolong lives. This generated even more interest in Brook Pharmacy's display of posters and produce.

I hugely enjoyed my time at Brook. It was uplifting to see a pharmacy so completely in tune with its local community. I only wish I could have joined them as they headed out that evening to celebrate their SMART Award at a local restaurant. A good night was in prospect!

 

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