Community coming together

For this month’s Pharmacy Profile, we spoke with pharmacist Andrew Stent from Wizard Pharmacy Perth Central, the fourth outlet he owns in the city, which opened recently after the pandemic had disrupted preparations.

Congratulations on the opening of the new store in Perth CBD. Please tell us about the opening and why you chose the inner city location. 

Thank you so much. I’ve been truly blown away by the support we’ve received for Wizard Pharmacy Perth Central. This site and the adjoining Wesley Medical Centre have been a long time coming. We started planning three years ago, but the pandemic halted those plans. The support from Wizard Pharmacy Services did take a lot of pressure off the transition and opening, which I’m very grateful for. I’m just thrilled that we’re officially open.

The theme of our grand opening celebrations truly was community coming together to support each other and enrich lives. We shared our grand opening celebrations with Wesley Medical, which genuinely highlighted our desire to partner for a higher quality of convenient care for our customers and patients.

The celebrations began with a moving welcome to country by Kevin Fitzgerald [Cultural Counsel at the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council], highlighting the history of our community. Then, we were lucky enough to have the City of Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas touch on the future of our CBD community.

Representatives from our brand partner, RAC, were also in attendance as we officially launched our annual holiday giveaway. It was a great opportunity to showcase the extent we go to partner with others in the community for additional savings and benefits.

Pharmacy in the CBD is very different to the suburban communities. I’ve owned pharmacies in the city since 2006, so when the opportunity came up several years ago to purchase another one and then later relocate, I jumped at it.

The store is attached to a medical centre. Tell us more about this and why it was beneficial for the pharmacy. 

Partnering with a medical centre allows us to provide a complete circle of care for our patients. It also offers convenience to our patients, which is incredibly important, as those in the city are typically time-poor and visit us around work hours or on their lunch break. We wanted to show them they don’t have to sacrifice convenience for healthcare. They can easily visit a GP, walk only a few steps to dispense their script and be on their way.

What have been some of your career and store highlights so far? 

Turning the unused area of the pharmacy into a medical centre would have to be a highlight. I always intended for a group of doctors to own it, and when that fell through, the decision was made to build it first and attract doctors once there was a practice we could showcase. Fortunately, we didn’t need to wait that long, and our first doctor came on board relatively early. We’ve just completed our first week of being open to the public, and we’ve thoroughly exceeded our expectations with patient visits. The doctor/pharmacist relationship is often not portrayed particularly well through the media, so It’s been fantastic to see the GP and our pharmacists collaborating so effectively.

What are your values at your pharmacy, and why is it so important to maintain core values in community pharmacy? 

We developed a set of values across my stores several years ago, and they’ve been instrumental in framing the decisions we make. 

• Aim for the sky. It’s important in life and work to set goals and then do the work to achieve them. We should always continue to develop our skills.
• Team before me. Any decision we make should be made with the best interests of our team and pharmacy before our own.
• Value relationships. Whether it’s a patient or customer, a doctor nearby, a drug rep visiting the store, or one of our team, we must treat them with respect. It’s rarely because they don’t want to and almost always because the communication hasn’t been clear from their leader.
• Clarity is key. There are generally only two reasons why a team member doesn’t do something as expected: they don’t want to, or they haven’t been given clear communication.
• Make a heart smile. My wife tells me this one’s a little cheesy, but it’s actually the foundation for all these values. It’s about doing the little things in life that people don’t expect and don’t forget.

Why is looking after your community so important to your pharmacy? 

Looking after our communities is so important to my team and me because we ourselves are members of the communities we operate in. Our customers and patients are our friends, family and neighbours. We aim to treat every person that walks through our door like family, and ask ourselves: how would they like to be treated?

I think our patients and customers keep returning to our pharmacy because of our personalisation of service and the additional value they receive when they shop with us.

A key part of Wizard Pharmacy’s customer success framework is teaching the team about maximising value. This isn’t upselling with products a customer doesn’t need. We maximise value to our customers through personalised and in-depth knowledge and health advice, complementary products, health services, our Rewards and Partnership programs and more. Our patients feel empowered when they leave our pharmacy because they know they’re doing all they can to achieve optimal health.

Why is it important to meet your patients where they are and provide them with tailored care, advice and support through considered programs, counselling and community initiatives? 

One of our key focuses is to phone patients within a week of them starting a new medication. A pharmacy visit for a patient with a new medication can be a daunting experience, and rarely will they take away more than three or four key counselling points. When we phone them a week later, they’ve usually commenced their medication and are more open to an engaging conversation.

Our pharmacists have made more than 1000 calls this year, and we’ve never had a patient annoyed that we’ve phoned them. We’ve been able to provide more appropriate and personalised counselling by doing this, and we’ve even discovered patients who hadn’t started critical medication because they’d read about particular side effects on the internet.

When establishing pharmacy services, why is it so important to understand the community? 

Not all communities are the same. Every community has different needs. That’s why I’ve worked with Wizard Pharmacy Services to better understand the exact breakdown of my community, so I can meet their needs in the best possible way. There’s no point in providing services that aren’t going to be used, as it will waste your pharmacy’s time and resources.

For example, the demographic of my pharmacy in Banksia Grove [in northeastern Perth] greatly differs from my CBD pharmacies. Our Banksia Grove community consists of young working families and retired pensioners. Patients in my CBD pharmacies are often highly educated office professionals. They’re time-poor and have high expectations for service. Advice must be delivered in a highly efficient manner. 

How has your team performed during the challenges of the past two-plus years? 

The industry has faced many challenges throughout the pandemic, none more than the pressure faced by our teams at the frontline. My CBD teams were afraid to use public transport to get to the city and were fearful of job security. My Banksia Grove team were burnt out from relentless demand and unprecedented expectations.

While workers across many other sectors retreated to the safety of their own homes, our teams were forced to face up to the public and work through their own anxieties about Covid-19.

We learnt that things could change very quickly, whether it was demand for paracetamol or vaccinations, or new systems such as ‘project Covid’, and we supported each other as best we could. It was as difficult a period as I can ever remember in pharmacy, and I’m so proud of my team for fighting through it.

What are you looking forward to the most for the rest of 2022 and into 2023? 

I’m looking forward to seeing what a settled post-Covid life is like.

The community has always respected and trusted pharmacists, but there’s a greater sense of appreciation than I’ve ever known. We need to take this opportunity to deliver on our expertise and build on the health services we provide.

I want my teams to undergo further training, whether it be management or clinical training. I have a full store refit scheduled for the first half of 2023, where I’ll look to improve dispensing efficiencies by installing a robotic dispensing system.

This feature was originally published in the November issue of Retail Pharmacy magazine. To read the interview in full, visit: retailpharmacymagazine.com.au/retail-pharmacy-november-2022