The Safedale Pharmacy team received their nomination from local volunteer Sally Freestone. “This is a warm community pharmacy at its very best,” says Sally. “The staff are super helpful and friendly.”

In March 2020, the Safedale team at the group’s Church Street branch in London’s Stoke Newington, reached out to a local neighbourhood group and asked if they could help them serve the community better. The volunteers, including Sally, manned the pharmacy doors and helped deliver medicines. This helped free up the team to wholly focus on the needs of their patients, and Sally says they did this “with exacting and total dedication, even in the face of staff illness and loss”.

The team worked with local food banks to support people discharged from hospital and struggling to get supermarket delivery slots, even cooking food in their own kitchens and delivering it to patients so they didn’t go hungry. The kindness and love shown by the team was unmissable, says Sally, adding: “The team were always there, and they’re still always there.”

Richard Dunne, RoE judge and senior manager pharmacy learning and development at Boots UK, is full of praise for this nomination. He says: “The team ran towards Covid and embraced the role community pharmacy could play, demonstrating the best of care – thank you.”

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