The team from Village Pharmacy Cosby aren’t just stars to their customers: they are also stars on social media.

To show their support for the local community during the pandemic, they took to TikTok and uploaded a video every week – one video even generated 2.7 million views, with viewers as far afield as Sweden and Borneo. They also ran colouring competitions for local children and other competitions on Facebook, with hampers for the winners.

“We came together to decide on ways we could keep the community’s spirits high,” says pharmacy director Dipti Soni (pictured above, left), who nominated the team. “We created a video for children that showed how they could wash their hands to the beat of a song. And we collaborated with a local care home, nominating them for a TikTok challenge.”

The team also saw a need to help tackle the escalating problems of domestic and sexual violence during the pandemic and they put up posters and created a video for social media to show their support. “We joined the campaign ‘UK Says No More’ and created a safe space in our consultation room where people could come for help,” Dipti explains. This proved invaluable, with one customer thanking the team as their posters had helped one of her friends escape a violent relationship.

Collaboration and care

The team went to every effort to keep up the personal service that they were so well known for in the community before the pandemic. “We made a special effort to ask patients how they were coping and offered any support we could,” says Dipti.

This support was given in many ways, including phone calls to those who were alone and even partnering with the Indian restaurant next door to deliver free food. “It made the patients feel as though they were not forgotten, and it also built the local business team spirit,” says team member Sinead Nealon (pictured above, right).

Their efforts to support customers and patients impressed each of the RoE judges. “They’ve all played their part and invested time in making sure their patients are OK, not just from a health perspective but also from a wider health and wellbeing view,” says Janice Perkins, consultant in patient safety and pharmacy practice and visiting professor at Keele University. “The fun element of what they do is really important, especially in challenging times. What more could you ask of a team?” 

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