Case Studies

Gregory, Pharmacy Manager

Lloyds Pharmacy

How did you start your career?

“It’s going way back to be honest. My family’s had a medical background anyway so there was always some interest in doing something either NHS-wise or anything that can try and help people. That’s always been instilled in me a bit as well. When I was in college, we were looking through placements as well. I ended up doing a placement in a small community hospital with elderly people there as well. It’s certainly a small part of it but I remember seeing the Pharmacist and drug chart that’s where I started to get the interest from as well.  During college obviously I feel I was from a more “sciencey/studious” background and the desire to maybe do something to help people and with that background; that is what really drove me towards pharmacy as well. When I found out more about the profession, I saw it as a good steady career opportunity where there were opportunities to develop myself. Trying to think what else was the main motivator – the development opportunity, the career progression I think is good because obviously with the university degree you had a direct vocation to go into afterwards so that was a good opportunity to better myself as well. The big thing was the opportunity to make a difference to people.

“I went to university in Reading. It was new school at the time. This was 2007 when I started there. It was really good. It was an eye opener as well. When I thought of Pharmacy, I only looked at the community aspect which I had actually seen as a child – my local pharmacy and everything like that is the stuff like that you remember. When you look at things like the opportunity to go into industry, research fields, hospital pharmacy placements, university was a real eye opener for that as well. It gave a real good solid grounding before you went in. So, that was four years at university; a Masters degree there. From there you go straight into your pre-registration which is the year of training under a registered pharmacist before you take your pharmacy exam with the General Pharmacy Council. I did that in Kelvedon, Essex. Again, really good grounding as well. I didn’t have that much experience working in the pharmacy. It’s all very good getting the theory from university but when you are working in the pharmacy that is where you really pick up your key competencies – your key skills and that is part of the GPC programme as well. That was a real formative year. That was the making of me as a pharmacist – literally, I guess. From there I qualified in 2012 after taking the registration exam and moved straight up to Norfolk and Waveney and that has been home since really.

What is your role?

“The basic role is I am here as the Pharmacy Manager. So, while I am responsible for managing the whole business and performance kind of thing my core job responsibility is that of Pharmacist. I am the only Pharmacist here. We do have five members of staff here at the moment. We are responsible basically for the aim of making sure that people manage their medication safely and making sure that everything is clinically appropriate for the patient as well. So, we’ve got real responsibility to make sure that any patients that are taking their medication know what they are doing and that it is appropriate for them and they are the absolute most out of it and there is nothing more we can do to support them. That is just one side of it as well. We also have responsibility for anyone in the community as well. I like to speak with my Team and I like us to know our responsibility in the whole area around us as a part of this community; to know that people can come here for support, basically. Any matter big or small. Any over the counter queries we are always happy to speak to our patients in depth about as well. We just want people to know they can come here as a first line source of advice and guidance. That is it in a nutshell, like to summarise or really para-phrase it as well but we are also branching out and doing more services as well. There are many NHS services, like medicines used that are being phased out which we go through in depth each of the medications to make sure they are all ok and there is nothing that is being disregarded. With that service as well, I think it is something like half the people taking medication are doing so incorrectly and of that, I think it was 40% (but I would have to double check that to be honest) end up in hospital. It’s making sure we can at least provide a little bit of a “stop-gap” for things like that happening as well. We do a new medicine service here as well in which we discuss anyone’s new medication to make sure in that first month they are being able to take it safely and again getting the most out of it and we catch any problems before they actually develop into something serious. But that’s just a nutshell. We do vaccinations – there’s a lot going on.

“We had to really think on our feet. It’s been a challenge and I think there are more challenges to come out of Covid. We are trying to brace ourselves for what happens in a second wave.

Have their been any challenges?

“We had to really think on our feet. It’s been a challenge and I think there are more challenges to come out of Covid. We are trying to brace ourselves for what happens in a second wave.

“If I can extend it to me and my Team, I think we didn’t realise how much responsibility was on us. We knew our place in the community. I’ve seen how patients really appreciate us as well. In terms of myself, I’ve had to be a bit more dynamic than I have been in the past – consider the bigger picture in a lot of things as well. I have had to get in contact with more in terms of a network of key stakeholders. We’ve had more conversations with out GP surgeries recently. We’ve been trying to make sure we can work best around each other. To complicate things as well, that Boots up the road has just closed and so again we had to try and be adaptable. We’ve put pressure on ourselves to make sure we can accommodate everybody as much as possible while making sure we don’t disregard our principles of making sure that we are keeping our patients and everyone that comes here safe as a priority as well.

How has COVID personally affected you?

“You look at how difficult it was initially for people to start following Government advice and this goes right to Government level as well, I think we need to be a lot clearer on what the public needs to be doing. We got to Boris’ Briefing and we could have acted faster on that as well. I think there is a responsibility on the public side as well to make sure we are obliging with these rules and they are set properly as well. Looking at the social distancing issues – we’ve really got control of it now to the extent most businesses as well but it did not feel like it was being applied quickly enough. I think that’s something we can really learn from going forward. It’s just making sure we are engaging with the public more as well. From a Pharmacy standpoint the biggest thing I’ve seen – we never had so many coming in and just say “Thank you.”  As routine as it became the Thursday applause from the public, showing appreciation for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Teams especially, they are underrated, was really encouraging to see. I was delighted to see that as well. It would be great to see more understanding of what we do and how we can support as well. As well as that the Teams, it would be great for them to feel empowered to be able to help more people. Going forward it would be great to see more people actually come into Pharmacy and more support for the profession as well. The profession has been suffering – that’s the realism of it over the last – it feels like it’s been long time to be honest – I would say the over 5 – 10 years – it feels like we’ve been getting more strained. It’s a bit difficult; we are talking the NHS – it’s strained as it is so I completely understand.

“It’s been a struggle. My belt size hasn’t reduced unfortunately. It’s been a real challenge as it has for everybody. We found ourselves doing projects around the house just to try and focus ourselves a bit more. It’s taken its toll – there is no doubt about it. I think it’s the same for everybody. For Key Workers – you are in the habit of going work/home, work/home, work/home and without being able to do basic activities and having those restrictions it makes you miss a lot. So, I’m looking forward to getting back to the real world whenever that happens. We will just have to make sure we are doing it safely really. Fortunately, I have got the support of my other half at home so it’s really good. Again, what also helps is having a great Pharmacy Team with me as well. So, having them here it’s a nice sort of escape from the reality of what is happening around us. We have all relied on each other to make sure the goal is that everyone that comes in here we can try make a difference with them.”