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Day Lewis director Sam Patel recently told the Avicenna conference that health centre pharmacies are less attractive propositions for contractors than they may once have been. 

Addressing an audience of independent pharmacy owners, Mr Patel said that while Day Lewis “spent many years moving our pharmacies into health centres,” in the last 10 years “we started to reflect that that’s probably not the best place for us to be working”.

“The rents are very high,” he said in his talk on the need to explore new business models, adding that there can be issues around parking and access via public transport.

“Often these shiny health centres are way out of town – they’re not where people are doing their shopping.

“I think the perfect location for a community pharmacy now is next to a small convenience retailer, or where you’ve got five or six car parking spots outside a community location – those are really fantastic places. 

“When you're in the health centre, can the patient visit you in the evenings? If you want to do an evening clinic outside GP house, can they see the pharmacy? Do they know it's there? Do they recognise that actually your pharmacy does more than just prescriptions?

“Often patients walk into a health centre without a wallet because it's not where they came to shop.

“Whereas in a pharmacy setting, which is a more community retail area, they might be more easily promoted into private spaces.”

He also advised contractors to review business practices such as stocking “too many similar products [like] 10 different types of ibuprofen,” adding that while staff members often give feedback saying “we need more pound lines,” in his view this “is not the right approach”.

He said: “We can actually make margin on where we are unique and what pharmacy does best which is focusing on our health needs, particularly P medicines – our golden opportunity.”

Mr Patel urged pharmacy owners to concentrate on “local demands,” commenting: “Who lives [in the area] and where do they buy? What services are needed, what competition exists?”

He suggested linking OTC sales to private services, for example recommending topical creams to patients experiencing skin-related side effects of GLP-1 medicines.

In an aside, he noted: “Our number one source of weight loss injection patients in the business has been Day Lewis colleagues on the frontline who are actually already on drugs themselves.

“Patient walks in, remarks how our counter assistant has is looking fantastic, has lost weight.

“The counter assistant is immediately in conversation with the patient around the drugs, around the service, around the fact that the pharmacist could see them immediately… [all from] just a simple compliment.”