A natural affinity for science took Ketan Agravat (pictured) up the career ladder in the pharmaceutical industry and saw him scoop the Pharmacy Business Best Practice Award 2009, says Nusret Khan.

In 1990 Ketan Agravat graduated in pharmacy, getting his first job in Boots as second pharmacist in 1991. He advanced through the pharmacy hierarchy exceptionally fast, making store manager in 1997. By 2001 he decided to move to an independent pharmacy and became area manager for MediPharmacy in 2005. In 2009 Agravat’s talent secured him the position as director of retail operations for both UK and India.

As a child Ketan had “a huge interest in chemistry”, and it was therefore his “favourite subject” at school and college. “I was leaning towards chemistry and biology, it seemed natural that I wanted to learn about medicines and to get involved in the healthcare field,” he said.

This curiosity played a vital part in the subject he chose at university. “I wanted a degree that was career orientated, which consisted of large amounts of chemistry and biology, pharmacy really hit the spot.” Ketan felt he had something of a “calling” into healthcare, considering his interest in science, and his attraction to pharmacy was inevitable.

He felt that his natural skills suited him to the pharmacy profession “I’ve always been an excellent communicator even when I was a youngster and that marries up with the role of a pharmacist,” he insisted. He gained an excess of experience prior to entering university, holding a Saturday job at a pharmacy and helping behind the counter at local shops.

At the age of 16, helping at the counter involved “cash and wrap and normal till transactions”, but Agravat gained invaluable experience in how people worked together as a unit “from what the pharmacist does, to what the counter assistants did.” He added: “All of that gave me a real appetite for being in pharmacy.”

Upon starting university Ketan's knowledge of pharmacy grew in great abundance. In his first and second year he went on an eight-week course with Boots. This was designed to give students hands-on practical experience in pharmacy. He spent the entire summer working for Boots, increasing his passion for pharmacy further.

In his third year at university Ketan worked alongside post graduate students to help them conduct clinical trials and clinical assessments. He eagerly explains that he made this choice because he “wanted to gain some experience doing something entirely different.” And in his fourth and final year, he completed his pre-registration at Boots. The work he had previously done for the company had secured him a pre-registration placement at Boots in Lewisham, South East London.

Ketan believes that gaining such practical experience was imperative to being a successful pharmacist. The assessment during the year is “based around your ability to be a pharmacist”. Students are evaluated on their competence, as he explains. “For example, counselling on coughs and colds. Your tutor would have to see you do that at least five or six times before he’d sign you off.’”

When he completed his pre-registration there were no final exams. He was trained to run the whole shop, including how to open up the shop and how to stock and clean the shelves. Ketan feels that it was “much more practical” when he completed the year although now “it is more exam orientated.” This practical side to pharmacy was not taught at university, which was why the pre-registration course was designed to give students “an all-round experience” of working in a pharmacy.

Ketan believes that the transition from university to pharmacy was easier when he was a student because of the eight-week course he completed in years one and two at university. “The degree course was clinical but those eight weeks gave me practical experience,” he said. And this practical experience included some of the more basic things, such as stocking shelves and pricing labels, along with the clinical side which involved dispensing medication.

Ketan now trains pre-registration students at MediPharmacy. “We train our pre-reg students on performance management, we try to give them a little bit more than the pre-reg exam,” he said. He believes that in order to be successful in pharmacy you need to gain a hands-on education. Students shielded from this “may be great pharmacists but they’re often not good managers of people.” He feels that this is because they don’t quite understand the business profile of it, and that’s where the shock is.

Although the patient always comes first, especially in a clinically-based profession as such, the business aspect must be considered otherwise the pharmacy is doomed to fail. “There will always be pharmacists that want to run their own pharmacy or branch, and they should have that learning curve,” he maintained.

After graduating in 1990, he got his first job in the Boots chemist in Bromley, where he was the second pharmacist. From 1991 to 1996 he went up the career ladder within Boots, becoming the dispensary manager, then the pharmacy services manager and then the pharmacy manager.

The focus of a pharmacy manager is driving the healthcare business, prescription business and the counter business. Bromley Boots, at the time, were in the top 10 Boots branches in the UK. “It’s a really big pharmacy counter business, that’s where I gained my stripes, not only as a pharmacist but as a business manager,” he said. Ketan was superior to two other pharmacists and took care of everything in the pharmacy department.

Soon after becoming pharmacy manager, he went into solo Boots management. In 1997 he was appointed store manager. This involved managing “all the different departments in the store”, although his branch was one of the smaller ones and is known to be the first branch a person goes to when they become a solo Boots store manager.

Within a year of this appointment, Ketan was promoted to the next highest branch, which was Putney in 1998. He spent a year working in Putney and was then promoted to the New Malden branch in 1999.

“This was a special appointment because Boots wanted to try out something called the concept store roll out. They selected four branches across the UK to develop a concept store which was the new- look Boots for the 21st century,” he suggested. The other three branches were located in Blue Water, Newcastle and Wales.

He had an intermediate sized branch. “I was involved in the changing of the existing stores to the concept stores, I was involved in the design, the methodology behind it and I was fully accountable for the transformation,” he said. He also had the responsibility of getting staff up to standard and this comprised both recruitment and training. He took staff to established branches to see how they were run. Ketan was accountable for what the customers would see and how it would make them feel, his vision and support during the six-month project helping to create the successful business that stands today.

He had a “very successful term” at New Maldon and was then promoted once more in 2000 to a bigger branch in Epsom. His official title was hub manager for the Epson cluster and he was responsible for a “further five to six stores in its vicinity as well.”

For these stores Ketan had to spend two to three days a week managing the business deliveries. In 2001 he felt there was “a huge knowledge gap around pharmacy because being in the corporate environment, one is shielded from what happens in the independent sector. I wasn’t very good at knowing how stock was bought in and what the profit margins are on stock.” At that point Ketan decided to take a leap of faith and moved from corporate Boots to an independent company called Dejure.

“This job intrigued me because it was about looking at other things which I had no knowledge of, things that Boots' head office would have done. And this I felt was something I really wanted to engage with because you couldn’t possibly understand pharmacy if you stay with one company,” he said. “It was an excellent decision I made, but a very scary one.” He was shocked by the contrast between the two environments, the pressures that needed to be dealt with and the things that needed to be learned that he was not aware of.

In 2005 Dejure combined with River Mead/ Khos Pharm to form MediPharmacy Limited. Along with other experienced pharmacists Ketan was interviewed for the post of area manager. In this year he went from pharmacy manager to area manager. In the following year he was promoted to business development manager and in 2008 he became the director of retail operations for UK. Finally, in 2009, he was appointed director of retail operations for both UK and India. “During that time we had established a chain of pharmacies in India,” he said.

MediPharmacy, he added, is “bench-marked as one of the best providers of services within the independent sector, our performance management structure is robust and is geared around delivery of NHS items and NHS services.” This pharmacy provides services such as smoking cessation, super fast methadone, chlamydia testing, diagnostic testing, cardiovascular screening, BMI weight management, allergy testing, blood pressure testing, blood glucose testing, cholesterol testing and much more.

They currently have three contractors dealing with the dispensing of disability aids. The passionate and insightful nature of Ketan allowed to him to transform his interest in chemistry and biology into a tremendously successful career in pharmacy, providing exceptional services in healthcare to communities in the UK and India.

FACTFILE

NAME: Ketan Agravat

PHARMACY: MediPharmacy

YEARS IN PHARMAMCY: 20

STAFF: 200

MOTTO: Delivering healthcare in the community

LIVES: South London.

FAMILY: Wife and two sons.

HOBBIES: 5-a-side football, badminton and reading about natural history.

FAVOURITE FOOTBALL TEAM: Liverpool FC