What Day Lewis executive director, Jay Patel, told the OTC industry...on working together

It’s vital that community pharmacy and the OTC industry work together closely while pharmacy goes through important changes, Day Lewis executive director, Jay Patel, told guests at a lunch held to mark the winning products in The Pharmacy MVP Awards 2016.

“Try to support the community pharmacy sector as best you can, because they need all the support they can get to be able to make these changes happen. Yes, there are a lot of challenges in community pharmacy, but I can assure you that this is a very resilient sector. And that hammering from government – the reduction in funding – is causing pharmacy businesses to look at retail sales to try and replace some of the losses that they are experiencing with the NHS.”

On the positive, there is a range of things that can be done to help support retail sales and self-care in community pharmacy, he suggested in his address to the Pharmacy MVP Award winners. Product promotions, linking OTC sales to the dispensing process and clinical services, and the potential for retail sales in people’s homes, were several examples of the potential ideas that he described.

Pharmacy promotions:

“Investment in promotions is a good thing. It gets our people to help practise their selling skills on that product, but also after the promotion is over we see a consistent rise in level of sales. These can often be repeat purchases, so investing in the short-term actually leads to long-term sales growth.”

Link OTC sales to other pharmacy services:

“We should try to link the OTC sell to other services that are happening in the pharmacy, such as the dispensing process. Do you have any products that could be linked to long-term conditions? Is there an opportunity to put shelf talkers in the dispensary pointing out the opportunity? Also think about the clinical services that pharmacy provides. We have travel clinics through a PGD, and can link in travel medicines and other products that travellers need. So they leave with their antimalarials, but also with their sun lotions and more for their holiday.”

Healthy Living Pharmacy:

“The Healthy Living Pharmacy model is something that we at Day Lewis have practised for some time. Review your categories – if they are linked to a healthy living agenda then promote them; train people on them and those categories will grow.”

Potential for home delivery:

“We can think beyond the pharmacy, too. Pharmacies are servicing patients who don’t even come in to the stores. We have a large proportion of at-home patients who we deliver to – we spend around £2 million a year on deliveries to patients – and those patients could do with a targeted retail offering.”

Combined merchandising:

“The final things that the OTC industry can do to help us is to make things slightly easier. You could look at combining the merchandising of P and GSL medicines. This would bring a bit more clarity to the patient and it would also make it a bit easier for the retail team to manage that combined P and GSL.”

Clear packaging and marketing information:

“Individual leaflets and window posters are very difficult to manage, so more digital content for some of the marketing information would help to address that. Then there’s also the importance of clear packing: so patients are able to clearly understand what a product does. This helps because the pharmacist’s time is so restricted.”

Mr Patel spoke of the trends and opportunities for OTC manufacturers that he sees in the community pharmacy marketplace. “We’ve seen a rise in health and wellbeing products, and market forces are forcing contractors to look at OTC more seriously. Generally, there is an investment in premises and in training staff in community pharmacy, and that’s because they do see there being an opportunity for OTC sales to improve.”