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Still going strong

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Still going strong

After 34 years in the job, dispensing assistant Barbara Wiseman can honestly say that she has never been more excited to work in community pharmacy

Since she began working at her local independent community pharmacy in Luton at the age of just 15, Barbara Wiseman has witnessed a great deal of change, acquired a raft of knowledge and skills and helped generations of families to improve their health and wellbeing. Now a mother of two, a grandmother of 11 and a great-grandmother of three, Barbara is more excited than ever to be taking on all the challenges that pharmacy has to offer.

“Back when I first started we had to make up a lot of medicines ourselves, preparing mixtures, creams and ointments,” she recalls. “In those days, people would come to see the pharmacist first and the doctor second. Now, it looks like we have come full circle as we are offering more services and people are being encouraged to go to the pharmacist first. We are seeing more people with long-term conditions and people are asking us more questions about their health and medicines. It is a very exciting time to be in pharmacy.”

One big family

The pharmacy where Barbara works was known as Tejani’s Chemist until it was acquired recently by independent pharmacy support group, Avicenna. Now called Avicenna Pharmacy on The Green, the premises underwent a total refurbishment, and more services and training opportunities for the whole team were introduced. At the time, Barbara was concerned that she might not fit in with the new approach because of her age, but the wider Avicenna Pharmacy team quickly reassured her that her experience and expertise was more than welcome.

“I thought ‘oh heck, I’ll be 60 soon and they won’t want me here’, but they were so supportive and said we were all like one big family,” says Barbara. “They have invested in people and premises; it’s a beautiful pharmacy and a lovely place to work. We are offered lots of training, but the new services have been introduced gradually rather than all at once so that we have had time to get used to the changes. It’s wonderful that we are doing all these extra things.”

As a dispensing assistant, Barbara spends a lot of time supporting the pharmacy manager, Simur Rahman, in making up medicine dosage system (MDS) trays, as well as dealing with queries from the local GP surgery and hospital. Avicenna Pharmacy on The Green has a great working relationship with the local hospital, and the staff will always contact the pharmacy to inform them if a patient has been discharged with a change to their medicines.

Part of Barbara’s role also involves explaining how to use the MDS trays to patients and their carers, in addition to referring patients to Simur for a medicines use review (MUR) or new medicine service (NMS) consultation.

Barbara (left) and a colleague at the Day Lewis gala dinner 2015

A bit of everything

Since the pharmacy extended its service offering, Barbara has embraced all the opportunities to take part in training and provide more support to patients and customers. She now undertakes the responsible role of preparing methadone for patients who access the pharmacy’s services for drug users, and has recently completed training with Live Well Luton to deliver the NHS health check to patients who are aged between 40 and 72 years.

“I do a bit of everything and I’m always learning. I do all sorts of training, paperbased, face-to-face and on the computer. I have even rung up sales representatives to ask them to come in and provide training and I recently became the first person to gain Avicenna’s Golden Award by gaining 500 training points; I was very chuffed with that!” she enthuses. “At the moment I would really like to learn more about diabetes as lots of our patients have the condition.”

This winter, Barbara and her colleagues Gemma and Maaria have been busy signing up patients for the NHS flu vaccination service. Barbara and Gemma also find the time to help members of the community who are unable to visit the pharmacy, by offering blood pressure testing at a local sheltered housing centre. The pharmacy also supported the Stoptober campaign in October, signing up more smokers to the pharmacy’s stop smoking service, which is run by Gemma.

Making a difference

In addition to these services, the team also spends a lot of time providing self care advice to customers at the counter. Thanks to the fact that she has worked at the pharmacy for so long, Barbara is well known by her customers, many of whom directly ask for her by name when they come in and really trust the advice that she provides them with.

“I think if you are feeling unwell or worried about something, it is easier to speak to someone you know,” she says. “Pharmacy has a big chance to make a big difference with these services and to find and help people who have slipped through the net – even if we just find one person with high blood pressure.”

Avicenna Pharmacy on The Green has a strong community presence and the team like to help residents in any way they can. For example, the team recently held a community fundraising day, involving a cake sale and a raffle with prizes donated by local shops, during which they raised £369 for a local charity, Keech Hospice Care.

A wonderful job

Looking back on her 34-years-and-counting in community pharmacy, Barbara says that what she has enjoyed the most is having had the chance to help children and families as they have grown up, as well as undertaking such a big variety of work.

“It’s a wonderful job and it’s lovely to be able to do things for other people. We are all about the community and I have seen babies grow up who now come into the pharmacy with children of their own,” she says.

“I feel so blessed to have found a job that I really love. I have never wanted to do anything else. No two days are ever the same; I never get bored. Pharmacy is better now than it ever was.”

I feel so blessed to have found a job that I really love. I have never wanted to do anything else

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