Amish Patel has been recognised for his relentless efforts to champion community pharmacy in the King's Birthday Honours List on Friday (13).
The owner of Hodgson Pharmacy in Kent, received a Medallists of the Order of the British Empire (BEM).
Patel told Pharmacy Business that he found out the news on his 40th birthday.
“It made my day, I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present,” he said, revealing that apart from his wife, who was there when he opened the letter, he has yet to share the news with anyone else.
“I just always want to be the best version of myself and once I achieve something, I think what next? How can I push the boundary again and get to the next level?”
In his 17-year career, he has fought for community pharmacy to be recognised as an integral part of primary care.
He is the current chair of the Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC) in Kent and used to sit on the board of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
“From early on in my career, I got involved with the politics side of pharmacy and representing contractors in general and not trying to do just what benefits me,” Patel told Pharmacy Business.
Though he is no longer a part of the NPA, Patel continues to push the agenda for community pharmacies.
“I got a three-year-old and a five-year-old (children). Someone once said to me, ‘you get about 12 summers with your kids before they go to secondary school and they don't really want to know you’ - I realised that that wasn't a big number,” he said.
“I feel like I'm doing great things as the chair of the LPC probably more than I was achieving at the NPA board.”
Despite the announcement of a new funding contract in March which saw community pharmacy receiving the largest funding uplift in the NHS, many within the sector argue that the increase falls short of the findings of the recent economic review, which concluded that 78 per cent of pharmacies in England are “unsustainable in the short run”.
Patel, who won the Pharmacy Business Technology award in 2020, admits he is conflicted about how community pharmacy should proceed in the future.
“On one hand we can do so much, we can relieve pressure on primary care. Pharmacy First Is a perfect example of that - expanding the number of conditions that we could treat would be great,” he said.
“The future is certainly going to be a more clinical role, but I don't believe we should ever stop dispensing locally because every time you're dispensing, it's an opportunity to have a clinical conversation with someone.”
However, Patel also stressed that community pharmacists need to decide if they want to continue to push ahead with the work they do in the face of unrelenting pressures and often a lack of awareness of their difficulties from health chiefs.
He admitted that he was supportive of the NPA’s call for collective action before the new funding contract was announced.
“We need to make sure we get appropriate funding, so maybe in order to achieve this, we stop constantly try push ourselves and almost go on like a mini strike the way doctors and nurses do.
“Everyone else seems to get ahead by saying we're not going to do it anymore (going on strike), and that puts pressure on the rest of the community and primary care,” he said.
“I have been very vocal recently saying let's stop making ourselves seem so great and just hold fire and then let the government realise how much we can really do.”
Patel hopes that his BEM inspires others from the sector to take up activism and try and improve the working conditions of community pharmacies.
“Not only do I hope it inspires people, I also hope it gives people some reassurance that there are people out there trying to help towards the greater good of community pharmacy.”
