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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.