Narrabri Pharmacy is one of six finalists Australia-wide in the 2024 Guild Pharmacy of the Year Awards.
The owner of Narrabri Pharmacy, Karen Carter, said being a finalist for the national 2024 Guild Pharmacy of the Year Awards is “humbling.”
Mrs Carter said it was a boost for her and her staff to know that their efforts at the pharmacy are being recognised by the community.
“I guess it gives our staff a benchmark to say, ‘well we are actually doing really well so we really appreciate it,” she said.
Narrabri Pharmacy has exemplified the adage of turning a crisis into an opportunity.
Three years ago, Karen Carter and her team experienced difficulty in attracting pharmacists to the area.
To adapt, they looked at ways to maximise efficiencies to free up existing staff to focus on their clients.
“Being able to pivot and move quickly to put a service in is something that makes Narrabri Pharmacy quite special,” said Karen.
The pharmacy’s staff explored opportunities to promote sales and customer growth and adapt to the changing pharmacy landscape including scope of practice.
Automation was implemented and initiatives were introduced to address falling vaccination rates.
These included measures such as pharmacy staff going to worksites namely mines and farms from 6am to offer vaccination to workers, especially some men who may not go out of their way to be vaccinated.
Community engagement is a recurring theme at Narrabri Pharmacy.
Staff team up with their community for charity and special events such as R U OK Day, The Biggest Morning Tea, breast cancer awareness and Footy Colours Day.
The pharmacy’s staff engage with First Nation’s people through the Indigenous DAA service to improve health outcomes including special promotions such as blood pressure checks during NAIDOC week.
The pharmacy is also relied on by older residents in Narrabri through the medicine delivery service and Webster-Paks for residential aged care facilities. Staff have also undergone additional training to be able to treat and care for wounds with the pharmacy housing a consult room so this care can be carried out in private.
The pharmacy has also taken advantage of modern technology by using dispensing robots and Scrypt messaging to streamline the dispensing of prescribed medicine.
“We recognised we needed more time for our pharmacists and so we have a dispensing robot to allow our dispense staff to work quite well in the dispensary and have that accuracy … to allow us to spend more time with our patients,” said Mrs Carter.
The team reviews business goals every month, helping the pharmacy grow over the years and into the future.
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