Since becoming a health champion, Lisa Miller is relishing the opportunity to make every contact count

During her 12 years at Medipharm Pharmacy in Wickford, Lisa Miller has witnessed a lot of changes in the world of community pharmacy. One big change occurred recently when the pharmacy, which is a member of independent pharmacy support group Avicenna, became the first healthy living pharmacy (HLP) in the region, and Lisa took on the new role of health champion. But far from being daunted by the rapid pace of change, Lisa is fully embracing the opportunity to play a wider role in improving the health and wellbeing of her local community.

“We are all aware that pharmacy is changing and we want to get on board,” she insists. “The HLP scheme is a way of emphasising to customers that we are here to do more than just hand out their medicines. It is about being more proactive, approaching the customers and taking more opportunities to interact with people about their health.”

Bright ideas

One of Lisa’s new roles as a health champion is to co-ordinate the promotions each month on a different health topic, for which she has come up with some innovative ideas. For example, the pharmacy team recently supported the Stroke Association’s Know Your Blood Pressure Day, but instead of just providing blood pressure checks and advice in the pharmacy, Lisa and her colleagues ventured beyond the pharmacy doors to target people visiting other shops in the area, with great success. Another recent health promotion focused on healthy eating and Lisa got local schoolchildren involved by visiting schools and holding a competition to design a ‘healthy plate’.

“It’s important to show people that we are part of the community and to keep messages simple and not bombard them,” she stresses. “We are able to do these things because we have worked together as a team for so long and because our pharmacist is very supportive, up-to-date and trusted within the local area.”

Lisa is fully embracing her new role as health champion

 

Friendly advice

Medipharm Pharmacy’s diverse range of NHS and private services includes flu vaccinations, a men’s health service, chlamydia screening, emergency hormonal contraception (EHC), allergy screening, an asthma clinic and services for drug users. As the health champion, it is Lisa’s responsibility to signpost eligible patients to all of the pharmacy’s services, as well as those offered by other healthcare providers. In addition, she is able to offer friendly, one-to-one advice on losing weight, increasing physical activity levels and quitting smoking.

“Weight is a subject that most people feel uncomfortable about discussing, so we give advice in an informal way in the consultation room because people don’t want to discuss sensitive issues out in the open,” she says. “Since becoming a health champion I’ve lost over a stone myself because I thought there was no point giving health advice out if I couldn’t follow it myself!”

Supporting young people

One of the latest services to join Medipharm Pharmacy’s impressive offering is the C-card initiative, which involves the supply of free condoms to young people. As a qualified C-card assessor, Lisa can issue people aged 13-24 with a C-card, which they can use to access free condoms wherever they see the C-card logo.

According to Lisa, the C-card scheme provides a useful way of engaging with young people about their health, and it links in with the pharmacy’s other sexual health services. It also puts Lisa in the responsible position of ensuring that young people are practising safe sex.

“Most of our customers are over 60, but the C-card scheme gives young people a reason to come in and helps us break the ice with them,” she explains. “We chat informally while supplying the condoms, ask if they have had a chlamydia test and check that they are safe. Once you build up a rapport, you can find out if there are any issues – for example, if you suspect abuse or that someone is acting under peer pressure, but you need to make it clear that this is a place where they can talk in confidence and not be judged.”

When delivering any pharmacy service, Lisa believes that the key is to “have empathy with the customers”, rather than simply “checking boxes or repeating information parrot-like”.

The extra mile

Besides promoting and delivering pharmacy services, much of Lisa’s day is spent dispensing prescriptions, checking queries with the local GP surgeries, with whom the team has good working relationships, and simply chatting with customers at the counter. Medipharm Pharmacy has a very loyal customer base, and Lisa will happily go the extra mile to deliver a prescription by hand to a patient’s home or spend a long time on the phone to resolve a problem with a prescription.

“Our customers love chatting and are usually in no hurry to leave. We know a lot of them by name, they give us great feedback and we get loads of chocolates and biscuits around Christmastime,” she says. Getting to be part of a great team, making people feel better and the fact that “no two days are ever the same” are the main things that Lisa enjoys about pharmacy work. She also appreciates the fact that she is always getting to learn new things and likes to stay up-to date with pharmacy issues by reading Training Matters.

When delivering any pharmacy service, the key is to have empathy with the customers

Future endeavours

Looking to the future, Lisa says that she would most like to develop her health champion role further by taking part in more health awareness events outside the pharmacy, as well as addressing health inequalities by reaching out to marginalised groups.

“I’d like to engage more with people who are left out of the system or fall under the radar, like people with mental health or substance misuse problems and, of course, men – who are notorious for not using healthcare services,” she says. “I think it would be good to visit big outdoor events, such as football matches, where we could really engage with people about their health and tell them what pharmacy has to offer.”