Pharmacy Spotlight: Easons Pharmacy

Pharmacy Spotlight: Easons Pharmacy

The MedPoint at Easons Pharmacy has been live for over a year and a half. Originally launched by the 2021 Mayor of Tamworth, the machine has been embraced by the community and has allowed the team to adjust their working hours. We caught up with superintendent pharmacist and owner Kieran Eason to find out more.

Tell us about Easons Pharmacy

We’re a family-owned pharmacy, my granddad started it way back in 1953, my dad then took over and I followed in their footsteps 14 years ago.

We’re a service driven pharmacy, providing many clinical pharmacy services (CPS) to our community. We specialise in ear and throat conditions and I’m a prescriber. We’ve recently seen an influx of new patients (many who live further afield) so we’re very busy, but thanks to our innovative technology and streamlined processes we can support new patients without over stretching our resources.

Why did you get a MedPoint?

We were making technology improvements in general so we could spend more time delivering our clinical services. I wanted to use automation to streamline all of our bread and butter services, like prescription collections, so we could refocus time elsewhere.

Prescription collections were taking up a lot of time, so we wanted to reduce this, especially for repeat prescriptions, where the patient knows their medication so rarely needs to see us face to face.

Like all pharmacies, we face competition from online pharmacies, so patients who couldn’t get to us during their working hours were going to them as an ‘easier’ option. We knew we wanted to do something to provide convenience and even win them back.

We also wanted to regain time for admin tasks and paperwork, which can really stack up.

We’re currently open until 6:30pm as part of our supplementary hours but are about to reduce that to 6pm.We are confident that we will not lose business as a result of this change as the MedPoint means we are effectively open for prescription collections 24/7.

We’ve been able to focus on CPS referrals which is a big bonus to the business and allows us to better support our GP surgery and community.

What’re the main benefits you’ve seen since installing a MedPoint?

Having the MedPoint installed means I can better allocate dispensing tasks to our Accuracy Checking Technician (ACTs), freeing up our pharmacist’s time. It’s linked up with all of our technology and platforms, like our app, to provide a great experience for our patients.

It’s also helped us cater for shift workers and we’ve found that many who left us to try online competitors have come back. Those who’ve switched back have done so as they can now easily stop and collect their prescriptions when they pass by our pharmacy during their commute. Of course, our patients also benefit from being able to give us a call if they have any questions or concerns, which online competitors lack.

How’ve your patients and team reacted to the installation?

Everyone’s received the machine well. Initially we had a few patients who were worried the machine would replace staff, but once they understood it was there to benefit our team and that they could still pop in for a chat, they were on board.

We used to hold prescriptions in the machine for a week for collections, but users now collect sooner, so it’s been reduced to 5 days and will soon drop again. Once the text notification goes out, a lot of our patients collect on the same evening or within 24 hours.

We still get new sign ups for the MedPoint a year and a half later!