Getting the balance right
The pandemic has added to a community pharmacy workload that was already year on year more challenging. Shifts in national contracts across the UK are reducing payments for supply while increasing payments for services, which by their nature take more time. Maintaining the bottom line means keeping a close watch on costs too. How to cope?
First, we have to ask ourselves: are we making the best use of our resources? Are we doing things we don’t have to? What other important things don’t get done as a result? You may feel that you already delegate as much as you can, but this needs regular review.
We can’t make changes to cope with future demands if we are struggling to run our own ship. We all have comfort zones that we operate within, but they need to be challenged periodically. Given the way things have gone this year, now might be a very good time to do so.
It can be difficult to set priorities and action them, and rarely do we put enough time aside in business for this type of planning.
As the old Irish saying goes, ‘If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there’.
Create an activity map
Do you have a list of activities that take place in your pharmacy? Do you know what every member of staff does? If you are not sure, you might want to make a list of all the activities your team completes over the course of a day for use with this module.
You may find it helpful for you and your team to record exactly what you are doing every 15 minutes for one week, or on different days each week for seven weeks.
You could use a spreadsheet with 15 minute slots to make it easier for everyone. Include key activities such as ‘phone’, ‘ordering’, ‘dispensing’, ‘checking’, ‘counselling patients’, ‘services’, and space to record other activities (especially important for pharmacists and managers).