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Marc started his pharmacy career with Boots in 1996 as a pre-registration pharmacist. After taking a brief break in 2003 to work for an NHS Health Board in Wales as a GP prescribing advisor, Marc is back at Boots UK as head of HR for Healthcare

Do you have a typical day and if so, what does it entail?

Every day is varied, which is what makes this job extremely exciting. It's the perfect mixture of pharmacy and people €“ my two passions! At Boots UK, we have an ambition to do life-changing work and I feel privileged that we can create more opportunities for our pharmacists to do so every day.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

It's important to make healthcare accessible and relevant for all of our patients and customers, whatever their needs. I get very excited about helping our people realise and understand the positive impact they can have on patients' lives to help them feel in control of their health.

What are the biggest challenges facing pharmacy at the moment?

Pharmacy is currently an underused resource. Pharmacists are the only health professionals who are available without an appointment, seven days a week, over extended hours and we should be proud of the access and flexibility we offer patients. We have a big opportunity to help our pharmacy teams understand the bigger role that they can play in providing local community care right now and to create and take advantage of this opportunity in the future.

How are the roles of pharmacy support staff developing within Boots?

We understand that the healthcare needs of our customers and patients are changing, and it's important we respond to this to ensure we provide the very best care. Pharmacy is well placed to provide convenient access to the right information, support, services and expertise. Training for all of our pharmacy colleagues is vital and we are investing in developing their leadership and clinical careers.

We have also created new opportunities to deliver care in the community with our unique voluntary Boots Macmillan Information Pharmacist role, which has created over 1,350 new members of Macmillan's team, helping to signpost customers to information and help if they are affected by cancer. Alongside this, we have also recently launched Smokeless €“ a programme that provides personalised advice to help customers and patients stop smoking €“ which is being delivered by our extended healthcare team.

Why is training important for pharmacy staff?

Our customers expect our healthcare teams to be able to talk confidently about all of our services and products and we invest in the skills, knowledge and behaviours that we know will deliver the best possible patient care. We aim to bring straight answers to patients, to give them unrivalled access to our healthcare experts €“ genuine, confident people capable of delivering active care in every format and in every channel.

How do you see the role of pharmacy technicians developing in light of the recent Pharmacy Research UK study on responsibilities and supervision?

We see pharmacy technicians having an increasingly crucial role in how we deliver active patient care in pharmacy going forward. Technicians are pharmacy professionals in their own right and we are always looking at ways to further integrate them to deliver the best patient care. In some stores, we are trialling enhanced training of the extended healthcare team to create more time for pharmacists to deliver more personalised lifestyle-based advice and services, such as smoking cessation and diabetes risk assessments, alongside their clinical role. The additional colleague training means the extended healthcare team is able to provide patients and customers with straight answers to all their healthcare needs.

What would be your three wishes for community pharmacy?

I would like to see the full potential of pharmacy unlocked. It would be great for customers and the NHS to recognise pharmacy's full potential in delivering excellent patient care, particularly in the support and treatment of common ailments. Furthermore, by having parity with GPs in the provision of healthcare we can work together to champion the potential pharmacy has in delivering patient care.

And finally, what would you be doing if you weren't head of HR for Healthcare, Boots UK?

I would like to be working for a charity€¦ or playing rugby for Wales!