Lloydspharmacy head of capability Barbara Sutherland explains why pharmacists must learn skills outside their healthcare training to better meet patient needs

We all know the pharmacy sector is changing; we can feel and see the differences every day. To keep pace, pharmacists need different and sometimes unfamiliar skills. That way they can make the most of their opportunity to grow their already important place in our national healthcare system.

A key skill that isn't part of traditional pharmacist training is selling; in fact ‘sell' is often seen as a dirty word by pharmacists, and well beneath their respected position as healthcare advisors. This attitude is understandable, but dangerous. Why? Because it completely misses who pharmacists are here for: customers.

The more pharmacy teams understand their customers, the better able they will be to tackle their health needs, and ultimately provide a much improved service to them. And this matters more than ever, as pharmacies now have a chance to offer new kinds of healthcare interventions and prevention strategies, many of which customers won't know anything about. This means pharmacists will only benefit from having a thorough understanding of how to ask customers the right questions.

That's why, at Lloydspharmacy, we are giving our staff the skills to do this, recently launchimg our largest ever people training programme to help drive up standards in our stores. The +ONE programme has given our pharmacists and pharmacy managers new ways to assess customer need, improved listening skills and questioning methods.

And we are already seeing results in-store. After all, smart and helpful selling is not about foisting unwanted products or services on people. It's about improving pharmacists' relationships with customers by communicating with them more effectively. It means focusing on each individual in-store more and understanding their needs better.

Pharmacists always have been, and always will be, highly skilled health professionals. This excellence in medicines does not always translate into strong people skills, but these can be learnt.