Key Summary
- Sukhi Basra’s clinical career is driven by a commitment to selfless service, a concept she calls ‘Sewa,’ rooted in her upbringing in an immigrant Asian household.
- Through her weight management clinic, Basra demonstrates how independent prescribing can be leveraged to provide relationship-led care that fills gaps in the current healthcare system.
- She advocates for a national framework for prescribing pharmacists, urging peers to remain lifelong learners and lead with empathy.
For Sukhi Basra, prescribing pharmacist at Clinichem Pharmacy, there were two major turning points in her life that shaped her career and the outlook towards life.
While making a presentation on ‘Developing and delivering clinical services and utilising independent prescribing’ during the 2026 Pharmacy Business Conference on Sunday (19) she recalled how as a nine-year-old she had to translate to her mother what the doctor said.
She said that her mother looked at her with an air of recognition, and Basra felt elated on being recognised.
The second turning point happened many years later when as a newly-qualified independent pharmacist she saw that similar feeling of recognition on one of her patient’s face. She said it made realise that she was no longer a pharmacist, who could prescribe, but a prescribing pharmacist.
For Basra, healthcare was never just a career choice; it was a way of honouring the sacrifices of her immigrant parents. “In my home, education was a duty you carried,” she explained, noting that the Sikh concept of ‘Sewa’ - selfless service - was woven into daily life.
Recalling her hospital waiting room incident with her mother, she said that early exposure to the "cost of invisibility" made her believe that healthcare should always provide recognition. “Everything I built naturally grew from that waiting room.”
This instance made Basra believe that healthcare should never make someone feel invisible.
The Identity Shift
While Basra has been a pharmacist for nearly three decades, she signed up for the independent prescriber programme much later. “My postgraduate degree came in 2018. The year I dropped my daughter off at university. My IP qualifications were in the depth of the pandemic.”
Basra noted that the “identity shift” to a clinician took many more years. To succeed, she had to work through imposter syndrome and unlearn the idea that her value lived only behind the dispensary counter.
Motivated by a broken system where patients often resort to predatory private consultancy, she founded The London Pharmaclinic - not as a separate entity from Clinichem Pharmacy, but as an extension of its trusted community presence.
At the London Pharmaclinic, the focus is on the human connection rather than just business models. Basra conducts 60-minute consultations because, as she puts it, "dignity requires time."
Before addressing clinical data, she asks three transformative questions: “What is your relationship with your body? What have you already tried? What would feeling well look like for you?”
This approach moves beyond mere transactions to provide relationship-led care where patients leave feeling truly understood.
Basra shared three success stories: a patient who needed an advocate more than a clinic, another who felt heard for the first time after years of appointments, and a third who achieved significant weight loss and health improvements through sustained therapy. For Basra, this isn't just prescribing - it is Sewa in action, putting empathy and attention at the heart of clinical excellence.
The downhills
“Building something good does not protect you from building it badly. At first, I was underpriced. I'm guilty, you see, very guilty. Later, I understood that the service that they want can't be sustained unless I actually charge for it.”
Basra also spoke candidly about the pitfalls of growth, admitting she initially confused "being busy" with "being good." She reflected on the danger of relying solely on personal resilience and failing to ask for help sooner, noting that "speed can make us sloppy, and clinical excellence cannot be rushed." Today, she utilises quieter clinic periods for essential governance work, viewing revenue not as a measure of success, but as a tool for sustainability.
Looking ahead, Basra is championing a national commissioned framework for prescribing pharmacists to fill current gaps in the healthcare system. She argued that while data is important, stories are what truly change systems. Her closing invitation to the audience was to look beyond portfolios and find a "why" that lives in the body.
"If you lead a team," she said, "create the conditions for clinical ambition so your ceiling becomes their floor." For Basra, this journey remains a service to her patients and a legacy for her daughters, proving that healthcare is a purposeful commitment rather than a sacrifice.
