Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare

Hello everyone,

It’s that time of the week where I give you an update on what I’ve been up to. This week, it’s a Board meeting with the ACS, a strategy meeting with our own Board and visits to a number of our Pharmacies.

Board Meeting with the ACS

The ACS (Association of Convenience Stores) Board meeting was attended by senior people from Coops, Spar, BP, Booker, Nisa and some leading independent convenience retailers. We discussed the strategy for the ACS and how it can stay relevant in a developing digital world. We discussed Government policy developments in areas such as selling alcohol and tobacco, as well as important areas including health, the environment and security. Whilst many of those attending are competitors, in this setting we work together for the greater good of industry and the longer term viability of convenience stores.

Site visits in Healthcare

I also visited three of our pharmacies in Lichfield this week with our Chief Operating Officer of Healthcare, Adrian Wilkinson. I wanted to get a closer understanding of the challenges and opportunities we have in Healthcare and I really enjoyed meeting some more colleagues within our business.

We began with a visit to Hednesford Pharmacy, where we met Vipon, the Pharmacist Manager and the team. The team’s hard work was demonstrated when Hednesford were announced as our Pharmacy of the year in 2017; a fantastic achievement! They haven’t stopped there though and continue to maintain excellent service, highlighted by their high CLI (Customer Loyalty Index) score of 100. As well as hearing about the great things the team are doing, it was really interesting to get both Vipon’s and Adrian’s opinions on the fact there are now less profits to be made on prescription sales, as a result reductions in NHS funding for pharmacy services. A challenge all our pharmacies face.

Vipon & the Hednesford Team

Our next stop was Lichpharm Pharmacy, which is located within a GP surgery. Elaine, the Pharmacist Manager and her team face a real operational challenge, as although the pharmacy is one of our smallest, it is also one of our busiest! They are doing a fantastic job in a very tight space and wherever I stood I was in the way!   

The last stop for us was Boley Park, one of our more traditional pharmacies located in a busy precinct which is part of a Central England Co-op supermarket. Here I met our newest manager in the business, Anisha Parekh, who took over as Pharmacist manager only two weeks ago. She is already making a large impact in her local area, and has built a strong working relationship with her team and the local GP surgery. It’s important for our pharmacists to build relationships with GP surgeries as we are often competing with other pharmacies for the same patients. During my visits I always like to hear more about colleagues and I was really interested to discover that Anisha is an avid 50p coin collector and although I had a 50p with me it was one that she already had.

Whilst travelling between pharmacies, Adrian and I discussed how Healthcare can further deliver our co-operative difference. I talked in a previous blog about how we are growing our digital online pharmacy and GP service and it will be important for us to work out how this is likely to affect our branches over the longer term. It was therefore really helpful for me to meet some of our colleagues and discuss their businesses in more detail.     

Strategy meeting with our Board

The blog ends with the day I spent with our Board and some of the Executive management discussing some of the key strategic opportunities ahead and the challenges we face. We also spent time looking at how we can become more member centric and increase trading and engagement with our membership. We heard from Melody Aguero, who heads up our brand and insight function, on some exciting developments in online forums and focus groups designed to improve our connection with members. It was a good day with a great deal of discussion amongst our Board members as part of this really important element of our strategic planning process.

That’s it for another blog. I’m sure you all already know what to do if you want to get in touch, simply leave me a comment below. I hope you all have a great week and I look forward to sharing more with you next Friday.