Successful pharmacist deployment in customer facing roles

The challenge

An emerging new customer in primary care is the practice based Clinical Pharmacist, sometimes known as a Primary Care Network (PCN) Pharmacist.

Through conversation with CHASE our client became aware of our ability to deploy experienced pharmacists in customer facing roles. The PCN Pharmacist is a new customer group to pharmaceuticals; CHASE acknowledged this and identified the challenges of fully understanding the needs and scope of this new customer group. A new approach was warranted.

The solution

CHASE recommended deploying Pharmacists experienced in Primary or Community Care to this role in order to fully leverage the benefits of peer to peer engagement.

Not only would the mutual recognition of a Pharmacist talking to a peer leverage better access, but a more appropriate positioning of conversations would leverage a better understanding of PCN and local NHS objectives and priorities, better insights and influence towards therapy and patient management, resulting in greater product adoption.

As such a pilot involving 2 Pharmacist Account Managers, deployed via CHASE contracts, was commenced for 12 months.

The outcome

As a result of the resounding success of the pilot, the team has trebled to 6 people as it moves into year two. During the pilot, CHASE Pharmacist Account Managers have added tremendous value and insight in the following ways:

• Mapping practice based Clinical Pharmacists in Primary Care Networks
• Effectively engaging and influencing Primary Care Network Pharmacists at a different level to mainstream sales personnel
• Fully positioning the benefits of their brand towards the role and priorities of a PCN Pharmacists
• Helping the wider sales organisation understand the role, objectives and priorities of the PCN Pharmacist
• Coordinate joint meetings between PCN Pharmacists and Community Pharmacists to align their initiatives to drive a more effective patient pathway
• Effectively partner with colleagues and use credibility and networks to engage with heads of Medicines Management and other key stakeholders

The team is expected to grow with the increasing number of PCN pharmacists being employed across England.