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Whatever comes her way

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Whatever comes her way

Thanks to her passion for training and her supportive team, Rehana Rasool is ready for any challenges that pharmacy brings her

As soon as Rehana Rasool began working as a Saturday girl at a small independent pharmacy during her A Levels, she knew that a career in pharmacy was for her. She relished the opportunity to interact with the public, improve the health of people in her community and learn on the job. Unfortunately, the pharmacy was unable to increase her hours, so she went to work at a hospital pharmacy, where she missed the one-to-one interaction with patients. Luckily, a full-time job opportunity came up at Brook Pharmacy in Halifax, where Rehana has now worked for 10 years.

Rehana embraces all opportunities to learn and develop her role

Making progress

In 2008, Brook Pharmacy was acquired by the small independent group Pharmacy Care Plus, which was founded by director Dr Robert Andrew and superintendent pharmacist Dr Devendra Shah. The change of ownership brought in various innovations, including a refit of the pharmacy’s interior, the introduction of new services and more opportunities to train. For Rehana, it meant the chance to develop her career by becoming a pharmacy technician and later an accuracy checking technician (ACT). This has allowed her to support the pharmacist by carrying out the final accuracy check on repeat prescriptions and assisting with medicines services for a large care home.

“I wanted to progress and have always been keen to learn With this job I can support a family while continuing to train,” she says. Lately, Rehana has had to get to grips with the new electronic prescription service (EPS2), which Brook Pharmacy has recently introduced. She and her colleagues ask customers if they would like to nominate Brook Pharmacy when they come in to collect prescriptions, so that next time the GP surgery can send the prescription electronically directly to the pharmacy, where the team download it securely and get the medicines ready for the customer or delivery driver to collect. “The EPS2 is more efficient and saves time,” says Rehana. “If we order medicines in the morning, sometimes they can arrive by the afternoon.”

We do lots of training here and I really appreciate the chance to build up my knowledge

Under one roof

Brook Pharmacy has kept on changing and progressing, and in 2012 it became one of the first community pharmacies in West Yorkshire to become a healthy living pharmacy (HLP). The change gave Rehana the chance to extend her role again by training as a healthy living champion, which has equipped her with the confidence and skills to approach customers proactively about improving their health by making simple changes to their diet, activity levels and lifestyles. It has also helped her to come up with some innovative ideas for health campaigns. For example, last Easter, the pharmacy held a healthy eating campaign during which it replaced all the sweets on sale with fresh fruit, which the staff gave away free, together with advice on eating more fruit and vegetables.

“The fresh fruit campaign coincided with the news story that suggested the five-a-day recommendation should be increased to seven-a-day. We wanted to help customers find simple ways of eating more fruit and veg and show them that it needn’t be too expensive. We had a really good response; the customers loved it,” says Rehana. Rehana is also involved in promoting and delivering Brook Pharmacy’s extensive range of services, which include smoking cessation, alcohol advice, EHC, a head lice service, pregnancy testing, chlamydia screening, weight management (with or without Lipotrim), free blood pressure checks and diabetes testing, services for drug users and a minor ailments service.

“It can take a while to get an appointment with a GP or practice nurse so people are really grateful to be able to pop in for a blood pressure check, and we can refer them back to the GP right away if their reading is high,” says Rehana. “Offering so many services under one roof means that patients don’t have to go elsewhere.”

Motivational support

One service that Rehana particularly enjoys providing is smoking cessation. The highly successful service begins with a confidential chat to find out the number of cigarettes a customer smokes each day, their triggers for smoking and reasons for quitting. Rehana also helps the customer to select the most appropriate type of NRT to suit their needs, including the option of using two types in combination. The customer then attends weekly meetings to monitor their progress with a carbon monoxide monitor and receive motivational support.

Rehana employs the same motivational skills to help customers reduce their alcohol consumption via the alcohol awareness service. This service involves an alcohol scratch card which helps customers to get a better understanding of their drinking levels in an engaging and non-judgemental manner. Depending on the results, Rehana provides tips on cutting down, such as choosing drinks with lower alcohol volumes.

Being a longstanding member of the team and knowing many of her customers well helps Rehana to approach people about sensitive topics, as does the fact that she is a multi-linguist, fluent in both Punjabi and Urdu. Last year, she identified a need to help Muslim customers quit smoking before Ramadan, as smoking is forbidden during the holy month, and helped six people to ditch the habit successfully. She also uses her language skills to translate medicines-related information between the pharmacist and patients who do not speak English well.

Teamwork and training

Rehana attributes the success and popularity of Brook Pharmacy’s services to the fact that the team work so well together and are given plenty of support to take part in training, including regular reading of Training Matters, which she describes as “fantastic for CPD”. Her CPD folder was called up by the GPhC last year, and she was extremely relieved to receive a 100 per cent rating. “We are a great team and all support one another and know when to refer to the pharmacist,” explains Rehana.

“We do lots of training here and I really appreciate the chance to build up my knowledge; I want to take on anything that comes my way.

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