Multiple community pharmacy

This article considers some of the career opportunities offered by multiple pharmacy companies

It often seems like the great divide: independents and multiples. At first sight, the idea of practising as an independent health professional in an environment where so much appears to be pre-defined or ordered might seem like a strange choice, but in the fast moving health care scene pharmacy practice in a multiple has much to offer.
Multiple pharmacy represents a positive career choice for a number of reasons. Yes, at the heart of the job, the role of the community pharmacist is what the individual makes of it. But in a multiple environment career opportunities are many and varied. Not only does multiple pharmacy offer the choice of practising in a high street, local community, health centre pharmacy, or busy superstore, but these choices can in some cases be offered without a change of employer.
At the branch level, there is the challenge of combining professional skills with those of retail management. Not quite the same as in the independent, because this is retail management with a difference. In the larger multiples store management allows access to whole departments of people who make marketing, shop layout and product spacing, among other things, their business. Even in the small multiple, where the number of support staff may be fewer, there is room to get on with developing a pharmacy business.
At the same time, pharmacists who want to concentrate on the professional side can do so, with positions to suit all interests and time commitments. Multiples may not have started the vogue for extended hours, but pharmacists can now work mornings, school hours, evenings or weekends only, as the superstore-based multiples look to provide pharmaceutical services for 70, 80 or 90 hours of every week.
More mundanely, there will be an attraction for some of being able to count on a salary, without living with the detail of the National Health Service remuneration settlement or the latest discount inquiry as an everyday concern. In multiple pharmacy, someone else can worry about that, while pharmacists can get on with the business of health care.
In addition, as you would expect from large employers, multiples offer many additional benefits as part of a competitive salary package, with pensions, bonuses, sharesave schemes, payment of professional fees and staff discounts among those offered as standard by some companies.
Many words have been written about the isolation of community pharmacists. In a multiple there can be more of a team approach. Area managers (often pharmacists) will have responsibility for a group of pharmacies and will encourage close local co-operation. These areas often form the basis for local management meetings, training, and professional development opportunities.
Economies of scale also enable multiples to offer a whole range of support services, so within a large organisation there is always someone on hand to help answer queries or provide guidance on professional and managerial issues. It is perhaps in the area of job scope that the multiples offer their unique advantage. If you as a pharmacist have skills to offer, or want to develop an interest in training, personnel, professional development, marketing or operational management, then a career working for a multiple could provide those opportunities, not just in Britain, but increasingly in Europe and even further afield.
For many pharmacists, working for a multiple is a natural progression from their preregistration experience. Within the community sector, multiples now provide the vast majority of preregistration places, and their training schemes continue to evolve to keep pace with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's requirements.
Following registration, multiple pharmacy also provides opportunities for postgraduate learning. Many major employers offer sponsorship for postgraduate education - some have even been instrumental in the design of particular programmes working in concert with universities.
By doing so, multiples are increasingly committing themselves to the ideals and principles that are shaping the pharmacy profession for the future. With a considerable investment in the bricks and mortar of pharmacy premises, they need to do so, but it also means that multiple pharmacy will be instrumental in new role development and re-engineering the profession to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
This may be the challenge of combining the professional responsibilities of the dispensary with being the first port of call for health care that the Government is beginning to promote. Or it may mean carving out a role for community pharmacists in the emerging health care agendas of compliance and medicines management.
In doing so, multiples are finding new opportunities for pharmacists to spend part of the time in primary care work outside the pharmacy, honing new skills and gaining expertise in new areas. And these new roles need leading and managing, creating further job opportunities and the chance to work across primary care boundaries at a local level.
These are challenging times in health care. Change can be exciting, but can also provoke insecurity. Working for a multiple, pharmacists can take advantage of a stable and secure base, with support and back-up, while still taking forward their professional and career aspirations.


Three current careers
Ann Purnell joined Moss Chemists in 1995 from hospital pharmacy and locuming. She has already managed a community-based pharmacy and a concession in an Asda store, and acted as a manager on a number of pharmacy acquisitions. A qualified D32/33 NVQ assessor, Ann now spends two days a week exploring opportunities for professional development in the East Midlands.

Steve Eastham joined Boots as a preregistration graduate in 1979. His career has included roles as store manager, beauty sales manager, large store manager and district manager. At the same time, projects and secondments throughout the organisation have developed Steve's skills and understanding of pharmacy. After a successful period as pharmacy training manager, Steve has returned to the field in the new role of regional professional development manager, in which he says he can practice professionally and seriously contribute to the future of pharmacy. Boots is also sponsoring his study for an MBA.

Ketan Hindocha started his pharmacy career with Tesco as a pharmacy manager in December, 1995. After a spell as pharmacy refits manager he moved into the general management side of Tesco, following a period in fresh foods with a role as a store out-of-hours training manager. He is now on the company's development programme for store managers and is personnel manager in Tesco's South Tottenham store. Ketan retains his links with pharmacy as a pharmacy sponsor, a regional liaison role for pharmacy managers covering both pharmacy and general Tesco management issues.