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Profile
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5/9/2011
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Engaging to improve healthcare
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Improvisation and determination has allowed Dipan Shah to improve the performance of his staff and provide the public of Weymouth with a thorough healthcare service. Neil Trainis talks to the Pharmacy Business Team of the Year award winner...
If the Government's health reforms really are hurtling towards community pharmacy like “a super-tanker,” as leading GP Dr Lisa Silver recently suggested, Dipan Shah's calm reflection provided a subtle contrast to the supposed panic engulfing pharmacists in the UK. “Pharmacy hasn't always followed through when it says it's going to do something,” the Pharmacy Business Team of the Year award winner says with an equilibrium suggesting he is not flailing frantically in the dark in search of something to grab on to as the coalition begins reshaping the health service. Action, he insists, speaks louder than words, particularly those of pharmacists prepared to gripe about how new-look NHS services, controlled by GP consortia, will function. “We go about (adapting to the changes) by engaging with the PCT and looking at what they're describing on the needs of the local public. We engage with the PCT Annual Report,” he says. Dipan is a member of Dorset LPC and has his hands full, not only with overseeing the Angel Pharmacy chain made up of four pharmacies based in Weymouth, but with doing all the things now expected of his colleagues as their roles evolve from that of the traditional pharmacist to active clinicians providing a more holistic approach to health. “We look at practices in other parts of the country. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. We take good practices and use them, not just in terms of cost-cutting but in terms of patient care,” he says. “We're doing all the usual stuff as well. Minor ailments, for example, kicked off in the north-east and me and my colleagues have brought that forward. As contractors, we always put our hands up in the air and we are always willing to participate.” Engaging is the name of the game. Dipan is an example to all those pharmacists stuck in stagnation and unable to break free of the meerkat stereotype that has defined them over the decades.
Reflects
Pharmacists must do much more than merely pop their heads up from behind the dispensing counter to serve customers. “For example, we brought forward the Osteoporosis initiative from the PCT in conjunction with Alliance Healthcare which ensures patients have adequate calcium intake, etc,“ he reflects. “This was a six-month initiative and took place three or four years ago. It was very rewarding for me and my pharmacists because we were making a positive contribution to people's health. We also do NHS Health Checks which are directly done by GPs. It's for people aged 40-74 who have one healthcare check every five years.
“We found some of the initial results limiting because invitation letters sent out were done on GP-headed paper, so patients often went to GPs, but having worked with the project lead pharmacy teams can now recruit patients directly into the scheme provided they also receive some sort of benefit such as income support.
“At the moment, we're doing four or five a month. It's interesting and rewarding and we intend to do a lot more of that.” He adds, with a touch of pride, that his pharmacies have doubled their number of MURs in the last three years. For Dipan, progression overrides procrastination. At a time when pharmacists must move with the times or risk being swallowed up, he sees no option but to be proactive and he thrives on the challenge. “The reason I became a pharmacist was dual. I wanted to be a health professional and help people with their healthcare and I wanted to have my own business,” he says. The entrepreneur inside him itches to jump out. Fifteen years ago he relocated his family from London to Weymouth and bought a small pharmacy near the sea front. Three years later, he relocated the business adjacent to a large GP surgery before purchasing two more pharmacies in town and obtaining a contract for a fourth pharmacy. He oversees 30 staff and his wife, Sejel, who is not a qualified pharmacist but a part-qualified accountant, helps stabilise the business. His appreciation of his staff knows no bounds. “I love the patient contact and I love working with my team and upskilling them,” he says. In his eyes, a thank you and a pat on the back will not suffice. Dipan's gratitude for the work of his staff is fused into shrewd motivational techniques. A few years ago he came up with the 'Angel Reward Scheme', an initiative allowing his staff to benefit if they hit four areas of performance; financial, audit, mystery shopping and training/development. If they meet their targets Dipan rewards them with activities designed to bond and educate them further. “I believe one team has to spend £1,600 in the next three months,” he muses. “One team did clay pigeon shooting, one had a meal in a restaurant, another had sailing lessons.” Chuckling, he adds: “It all depends on what floats their boat.” An unquenchable team spirit underpins the business's success. “We have created a great team spirit,” Dipan suggests. “Our strength is that there's a sense of belonging and embedding ourselves in the community. We are doing everything we can to make our public happy with the service we provide. If you can make that work, you have a customer for life.”
Performance
Enterprise encapsulates Dipan. He has also created an electronic newsletter which is read by the staff and includes professional service updates, buying information, examples of good performance and personal announcements such as weddings and birthdays. Dipan's improvisation and willingness to go that extra mile has gelled those who work for him, improved the services Angel Pharmacy provides and, in the juddering words of Government ministers who seek change, made his business “viable” in a restructured health service.
Two of his four pharmacies have been renovated, with £230,000 splashed out on the redevelopment of the Crescent Street branch, which he describes as his “flagship store.” The improvements have created “a more modern image,” defining “what we believe pharmacy should be doing.” He wants to refit the other two pharmacies but financial assistance will be hard to come by. “It's going to be costly,” he says. “We had a refit of our flagship store last year and we were encouraged to do the same (with the other two pharmacies) but with the recession it's hard. We funded the Crescent Street (refit) ourselves.”
Dipan remains unflustered by the politics swirling around pharmacy, and the healthcare sector at large, but is plugged in to the dilemmas facing everyone in his profession. “I'm apprehensive. There are concerns about how much we invest in pharmacy,” he says. “I would like more reassurance and concrete evidence from the Government about service commissioning.” Quietly spoken and considered, he has no desire to pontificate on the future of pharmacy but finds honesty hard to shackle. “I do fear for pharmacy,” he discloses, before adding that “GP consortia, 100-hour pharmacies and GP-owned pharmacies present the biggest threat to community pharmacy.” He even suggests it would be “ a disaster” if GPs establish their own pharmacies. “Going back to why I got into pharmacy in the first place - the passion and business - that would all be taken away. “ Yet the theme of dogged self-sufficiency creeps through any idea of hardship. “Pharmacy can survive,” he ponders. “A lot depends on what the Government allows it to do but much depends on pharmacy itself.”
Dipan's proactive approach to his staff, his business and his patients is music to the ears of the GP consortia who are about to take control of an £80 billion health budget and service commissioning. Not to mention an example to those who find themselves twisting in the wind without any sense of their future.
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