CONFERENCE
ThE STUnnIng SCEnEry of CAPE ToWn IS A BEAUTIfUl BACKDroP for ThE MIllIonS of ToUrISTS Who SUn ThEMSElVES In ThIS SoUTh AfrICAn CoASTAl loCATIon EACh yEAr. BUT ThE DElEgATES AT ThE nUMArK InTErnATIonAl ConfErEnCE 2017 hAD MorE SErIoUS MATTErS In MInD…ThE ChAllEngES fACED By PhArMACy.
Survival of the fittest f
rom compliance to IT, from general survival to generic drug price rises, delegates at this
year’s numark International Conference were treated to a wide- ranging series of presentations – many of which were hard hitting.
Even the conference title - ‘Survival of the fittest’ – had made it clear from the outset that the event would be tackling difficult issues and indeed, from the moment that numark Managing Director John D’Arcy took to the stage of the Mount nelson hotel, those present were challenged to take a long, hard look at both themselves and their businesses.
‘Survival of the fittest’, John D’Arcy told delegates, ‘underpins the reality for many contractors at the moment. The fear is that, if you stop performing, you could be the first to succumb to funding cuts.’
Instead, D’Arcy encouraged delegates to view the threat differently, focus on quality and understand how to maximise existing potential of their business.
‘These are challenging times,’ he told them. ‘Things are changing rapidly – especially for pharmacy business. Time has been called on pharmacy; we need now to step up to the plate in terms of building a value proposition based around the delivery of high-quality, patient-focused services. The current pace of change and the depth of the agenda means pharmacy cannot go it alone.’
Before long, perhaps unsurprisingly, the subject of Brexit was brought up, with D’Arcy describing it as a reflection of how people at large are fed up with the Euro bureaucracy dictating UK laws and encouraging net migration into the UK; disaffection which, he said, had also
Pictured (l-r): Brian Fisher (Quantum Pharma), Jeremy Meader and Steve Anderson (Phoenix), Mike Johnson (Rowlands), and Emma Charlesworth, Mandeep Mudhar, Deborah Reeves, Raj Nutan and Wayne Harrison (Numark).
been reflected by the outcome of the US election last november.
‘The world is rebelling against globalisation,’ he continued, ‘and whilst globalisation makes undoubted economic sense, it increasingly does not make political sense.’
D’Arcy then turned his attention to the cost of a non-compliant pharmacy, pointing out to delegates that ensuring a pharmacy adheres to a set of rules is ‘just good business’.
‘looking ahead,’ he said, ‘compliance is likely to play a significant role in how community pharmacy performs as a sector. There are two sides to compliance: regulatory and internal. We tend to be less compliant when it comes to business practices, and this is the part we should be focusing on.’
IT was another subject that poses many challenges for pharmacists. D’Arcy told the delegates that they had to embrace it or ‘you’re stuffed’! Pharmacists, he said, needed to embrace IT to improve their clinical and commercial skills and stressed that the sector had to ‘make the most of technological developments to make processes more efficient’.
his view was reiterated by Ian Taylor, Managing Director of IT solutions company EMIS health, who said that it was vitally important for pharmacy to retain its clinical interaction with patients via its own systems and that community pharmacy should have its own unique patient record.
The digital agenda was also high on the list of priorities of numark’s Director of Commercial operations, raj nutan, who said that the functionality of technology would not
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