Gennie Charlett’s dedication to pharmacy and her customers is second to none, as her awards entry proved

Like many, Gennie Charlett’s career in pharmacy started with a Saturday job. She continued to work evenings when she went to college, and after completing her two-year course to become a legal secretary, she took a full time position in the pharmacy, spending half her time on the shop floor and the other half in the dispensary. Her dedication has been rewarded with a Highly Commended in the Customer Care category at this year’s Awards, for which she was nominated by LloydsPharmacy area manager, David Dean.

The dispensing assistant says she treats her patients at LloydsPharmacy’s branch in Witney, Oxfordshire, as if they were members of her family. A great example of this is when she visited a 95-year-old housebound and deaf patient late one Friday evening after a GP phoned to say he’d made a prescribing error. Gennie went round and sorted out his dosette box to make sure everything was correct, explaining: “The doctor said it’d be OK to wait until Monday, but I wasn’t happy leaving him with the wrong medication over the weekend.”

The high regard Gennie has for her patients is reciprocated, with many of them asking for her by name when they pop into the pharmacy, and saying hello when they see her out and about. She says: “I’m always happy to chat, or ring or pop in to see someone, especially if they haven’t got any family living close by. It isn’t much for me to do, but it makes a real difference to them.”

Bolstered by her success at this year’s Awards and inspired by meeting her fellow finalists and hearing their stories, next on Gennie’s to-do list is a pharmacy technician course.