Start-ups threatening professionalism

New pharmacy start-ups must be subject to better tests of their abilities to provide professional services and an unmet need in the market.

ProPharma general manager David Lewis says only then will the profession have the security and confidence to further invest in services and re-establish itself more firmly as the health professional the public sees most often.

“A move like this would lead to DHBs being able to fund some of the innovative services that only pharmacy is able to provide within primary healthcare, which is the most effective way to manage the health of our population,” he said in his welcome speech at the annual Pharmacy Awards.

Mr Lewis says the explosion of pharmacy numbers in Auckland and elsewhere and how this reflects on the way the public views the services offered are two strategic issues that need addressing.

“For any business, profession or service to move forward, and improve its offering, it must invest,” he says.

“The current environment where pharmacies are opening in areas already adequately serviced creates an increasing disincentive for any investment in the appropriate infrastructure, or staffing to provide the professional services the public needs.”

He feels most of the DHBs’ additional spend associated with dispensing is on additional pharmacy infrastructure, often in an unnecessary way.

“In an environment where there is one buyer, Pharmac, and one customer, the Government through the DHBs, there is no benefit in increasing the number of pharmacies. This does not lead to increased competition, it only leads to degradation of service and ultimately to the detriment of the perception the public has of the pharmacy profession.”

Anna Mickell, manager at Pharmacy Wholesalers Russells, thinks the issue of new pharmacies opening up actually is much more complex and there’s need for better research into the market drivers for this trend.

She identifies the following: doctors and/or property investors looking to fund property investments; PHOs looking to improve the services provided to their clients (and grow their own organisations in the process); older immigrant pharmacists who have owned their own businesses overseas and wish to do so here; older experienced pharmacists opening medical centre businesses to protect their existing strip businesses; pharmacy groups opening in areas of new population growth and retail outlets, like The Warehouse, taking advantage of high foot traffic.

At an Auckland meeting hosted by the Guild North on 16 June to introduce young pharmacists to critical success factors of running or starting up a pharmacy, Ms Mickell countered the common perception start-up pharmacies are mostly opened by young, inexperienced people.

“Of the 35-odd pharmacies that have opened around Auckland and the upper North Island in the past three years, only a handful have been opened by pharmacists under 30,” she says.

Ms Mickell thinks the days of one pharmacy, one pharmacist are over.

“Young pharmacists need to be realistic about their chances of finding a business to buy outright. It is more likely they would be purchasing a share-holding in an existing business or group of businesses.”  RK

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