Hema Patel, a committed new pharmacist who operates four pharmacies. She runs a business under constant threat from the healthcare industry’s relentless headwinds, just to keep open the doors to care in her community. Her community pharmacy in Benfleet, Essex, dispenses to around 30 people a day on average. To further meet the fast-increasing demand, she’s doubling her space with new consultation rooms. Today Patel is wildly successful. She points to a dire lack of money from the national government to help maintain these crucial dispensaries, which she says are often critically underfunded.
Patel has been sounding the alarm over the hellish funding landscape facing the pharmacy industry. It’s for this reason that she passionately declared creative youth development is “on its knees with funding.” She thinks pharmacies require more targeted financial support to play a role in alleviating pressure on GP surgeries. These surgeries have more and more looked to community pharmacists to help with this burden. The Department of Health and Social Care has been unequivocal in response to these worries. To top it off, they’ve committed to increasing funding for the core community pharmacy contractual framework, bringing it to £3.1 billion by 2025-26.
Patel has implemented the automated dispensing process in her busiest pharmacy. Whether in the stock room or on the sales floor, she harnesses a robotic device to maximize efficiency. This technology has freed up her team to spend more time on patient care instead of administrative burden. As she points out, the expense of deploying that kind of technology is cost-prohibitive for her other three pharmacies.
“Because we’ve got quite a big clinical arm here, we needed the automation… to free up the pharmacy’s time,” – Hema Patel
She is looking to automation as a money-saving solution for her Benfleet site. She says she’s concerned about whether it’ll be affordable for her remaining branches. The increasing burden of business rates, minimum wage, national insurance contributions and electricity are all impacting crushingly on her pharmacies. These costs have only increased their burden. She points out that the cost of drugs is rising as well and reimbursement rates are not matching up correctly with these rising costs.
During these early career challenges, Patel finds great satisfaction with her work and the positive impact she makes, asserting that community pharmacists are essential members of the healthcare team. She said she was proud to have had the opportunity to improve people’s lives and deliver positive change through her services.
“We are making positive changes to people’s lives every single day, and so I feel great that I’m able to do this in my career,” – Hema Patel
Patel’s devotion to her chosen field is clear in her assertion that pharmacists need to be using their skills to their full potential.
“We didn’t go to university and study for the best part of five years to check a box, that’s not what I wanted to do,” – Hema Patel