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I never thought I’d be sitting behind a desk and working in an office, but I count myself very lucky that my career’s panned out this way.
I have been at Numark for about two years. I build relationships with suppliers and negotiate commercial terms, to try to give our members a more profitable business.
We gather market information from various price lists and benchmark our terms against the market so our members have confidence that they’re getting the best deal.
We’re trying to save them time and money so they can spend that developing services. Services are becoming increasingly important, so if we can look after the commercial side of things that frees up pharmacists’ time to help patients.
Normally at the start of the day I’ll be checking and clearing emails, and contacting suppliers. I usually have two supplier meetings a day, so I try to have one in the morning, one in the afternoon and grab some lunch in between. At the end of the day I catch up with members who want further information about deals.
As part of the team I also answer any other queries members may have. Recently there has been a lot about the responsible pharmacist regulations. We’ll go out and see members on occasions, and we regularly hold training events for members, so I’ll try to go to as many of those as I can.
I did my pre-reg in hospital and that was great because you build lots of clinical knowledge, but then I was offered a manager’s position at Lloydspharmacy – and I’d always wanted to work in community. My father’s friend owned a pharmacy chain in Coventry and I started working for him when I was about 16. I liked the fact that it was science as well as working with the public and retail.
I worked for Lloydspharmacy for seven years as a pharmacy manager before I took a six-month secondment placement in AAH – and I ended up staying five years! I was an ethical category manager and then PI manager in the commercial team, so I was involved in marketing the commercial deals. It was a real eye opener because when I was working for Lloydspharmacy all the buying decisions were made for me by head office, but in AAH I was working in a really competitive market with other wholesalers.
Working in a marketing environment was really interesting, but my current role involves more negotiation and setting up the deals, rather than just marketing them, so it’s a much more varied role. It’s great to get a deal our competitors haven’t been able to launch so we’re first to market with that deal. I always look forward to the next deal and it’s great to get good feedback from members. For me it’s a challenge to make independents more profitable and I am motivated by the fact that we can make a difference. There’s a lot of paperwork at times because of the contracts, but it’s just one of those things that unfortunately comes with the job. Everyone hates the paperwork side of their job.
I still do the odd locum now and again because I think it’s important to continue to understand the pressures of working in a pharmacy. I try to take the best practice out of each pharmacy that I work in. I really enjoy it, actually – having contact with members of the public and the pharmacy team, and counselling patients. I do miss the day-to-day contact with patients and the banter. Working in the dispensary I don’t miss so much!
Where I can I try to switch off after work because you need to get that work life balance. I have got three young kids so they keep me busy most of the time. Two of them have started school now so I come home and help them with their homework. If they’re good I’ll let them play on the Wii I bought them recently – my little boy, who’s only five, can beat me at Mario Kart! I try to put them to bed about eight o’clock and head to the gym to de-stress. I do a quick workout – then head for the sauna and jacuzzi! I’m normally back around 10pm, catch up on a bit of TV and I’m in bed by midnight.
I have joined Numark at a really, really exciting time. We have a really good, strong growth in our membership and I’m involved in making sure we strengthen our services and commercial offerings. I really want to be part of that success for our members.