As any community pharmacist knows, having a reliable and well-trained team around you is critical to the smooth and safe running of the pharmacy.
The pharmacy counter staff form the firm foundations of any pharmacy and are amongst the most important team members as they are normally the first person the patient sees and speaks to.
It’s difficult to over emphasise the significance of this initial interaction. It forms an impression on your customers and affects how they feel about your pharmacy, it can impact their overall experience and of course what they report back to their friends and family.
As well as new customers, we know that regular customers value seeing friendly faces in the pharmacy – staff members who know their names, the healthcare challenges they might be facing, and how to help them.
However, the role of counter staff extends way beyond these initial interactions.
Triage training
With multiple demands on the teams’ time, correctly managing customers or directing them to the most appropriate person can help avoid costly disruptions to workflow – not only can these interruptions cause delays, but they can also potentially lead to errors in the dispensing process.
With the right training and support your team can deal with many enquiries autonomously and confidently, reducing the need for pharmacist interventions.
The more people that can be safely dealt with by your counter staff the better as this frees you up to focus on patient who need your expertise.
Question time
Responding to symptoms is one of the main roles of pharmacy support staff, so a sound understanding of common conditions is essential in order to recommend appropriate products, know when to ask the pharmacist for advice, or when to refer the person directly to the pharmacist.
Support staff should also be able to relay the information they have gained from the patient to the pharmacist if necessary in order for them to make decisions on management. Is this something the pharmacists needs to speak to the patient about directly, or can the team member do it safely? Could your team handle more enquiries themselves?
Training on common conditions in pharmacy should form the basis of this knowledge, for example seasonal conditions such as cold and flu or hayfever, women’s health conditions, or childhood illnesses.
Team members need to know what questions to ask, ask them in the right order, and know what course of action to take depending on these answers. They should have the confidence to deal with these sort of requests which will in turn give patients confidence in them and your pharmacy.
Staff also have to have an understanding of the impact long term conditions can have on their customers, as well as the needs of people with disabilities, mental health problems, and be aware of other sensitives which may include LGBTQ+ , or religious issues.
They should also be able to provide information about pharmacy services such as Pharmacy First, smoking cessation or hypertension case finding.
However, all of this shouldn’t be a one-off exercise, regular updates throughout the year are necessary to ensure product knowledge is kept up to date and advice continues to be is evidence based.
Continuous improvement
At first glance the roles and responsibilities of pharmacy support staff can seem quite straightforward, but as they are interwoven through many of the services we offer in pharmacy, they form a critical network to ensure that the pharmacy can be run efficiently and safely with patient care at the centre.
Centre to this is a firm grounding and continuous development addressing gaps in knowledge, learning from incidents, as well as developing new skills when necessary (helping to manage managing Pharmacy First consultations for example). It is worthwhile taking the time to consider the needs of your team as it will ultimately benefit the pharmacy and patients.
So, how much time do you dedicate to staff training? When was the last time you identified a training need for a staff member? Do you have personal development plans in place for your team?
Online answer
At Mediapharm we understand the day-to-day challenges of running a community pharmacy as our expert pharmacist course authors have decades of pharmacy experience – we are here to support your staff development.
Why not check out our comprehensive range of courses and start planning your pharmacy team training.
