With pending cuts and other financial pressures on pharmacy, slashing the training budget is an appealing option, but this is a false economy that will cost any business dearly.

By not investing in your staff, you reduce your pharmacy’s ability to function in bad times and damage employee morale, engagement and the pharmacy’s performance. These short-term measures will do long-term harm.

• As your practice advances, it is crucial to have the correct ratio of general to specialist skills. 
• Do you have the right staff with the right skills in the right roles? 
• Take time to review how activities are allocated in the pharmacy.
• Could you enhance the skill set by delegating appropriate activities to free up your time?

Front-line employees represent the pharmacy, so it is essential that they have good communication skills. But when I had a poor experience at a pharmacy, the lack of rapport and key communication skills destroyed my ‘moment of truth’.

Remember that a negative experience is shared more quickly with friends and family than a positive one.

More information

If you are looking for further information, the website Consultation Skills for Pharmacy Practice (consultationskillsforpharmacy.com), jointly produced by key pharmacy organisations, is a useful guide to creating focused and quality-led engagement with patients. This includes a range of resources and an assessment.

References

1. Royal College of Physicians, The Future Hospital Commission Report, 2013.

2. Suliman AA. 2012. What elements of the patientpharmacist relationship are associated with patient satisfaction? Patient preference and adherence. 2012: 6 663-676.

3. Healthcare Improvement Scotland, 2013. More to come from author

4. PwC Health Research Institute. 2012. Moment of truth for healthcare: why the customer experience matters.