By her own admission, Charlotte Culmer didn’t set out to forge a career in pharmacy, but she’s clearly doing something right

After over 12 years in pharmacy, Charlotte Culmer has never been so sure that she went into the right profession. Named the winner of the Service Excellence category, sponsored by EllaOne, the health champion and counter manager at Temple Pharmacy in London’s Plumstead, was nominated for the award by staff at the head office of Avicenna, the independent pharmacy support group to which the store belongs.

Charlotte’s winning ethos is simple: “I try to do my best with our patients because I really want people to be okay.”

A good example of how the pharmacy’s customers benefit from this most heartfelt of approaches is an elderly lady who was visiting the store with increasing frequency. Charlotte noticed that she often seemed confused and forgetful so took her to one side in concern. The woman confided that people had mentioned she was sometimes doing things repeatedly because she was forgetting she had already done them. Because nobody had pushed her on it, she hadn’t thought to seek help. Charlotte says: “She was extremely grateful. She understood how diffi cult the conversation was and thanked me… she is now attending the memory clinic and is showing some signs of improvement.”

Charlotte continues: “Emotional support has become a much bigger part of my role. In healthcare, it’s now almost as important as providing prescriptions and the typical pharmacy tasks… I have become much better at this, dealing with people who are upset and helping them understand any problems better.”

Part of the reason Charlotte has been able to evolve in her practice in this way is her continual quest for learning, both through seminars and other programmes.

That isn’t to say that Charlotte intends to follow the conventional route of many community pharmacy support staff, and move from the counter into the dispensary. She explains: “I absolutely love my job and one of the things I love the most is the interaction and one-to-ones I am able to have with people every day. I feel that perhaps if I went into dispensing at the moment then some of this would be lost, hence my decision to stay where I am and continue to help and support my patients as much as possible.” She adds that she knows opportunities will be provided when she does come across something she would like to do: “I work for a lovely independent pharmacy which is supportive of all employees’ needs and wishes.”

For anyone thinking of entering the RoE Awards in future, Charlotte says there are no downsides: “The Awards day for me was truly amazing, it was lovely meeting staff like myself and many people from lots of different companies. I found it very moving how supportive everyone was of each other… other people’s stories were truly inspirational and it’s wonderful to see so many people putting their heart and soul into their work and going above and beyond their duties to make sure everyone feels they are looked after and cared about.”