A local pharmacy is one of just six across Australia in the running to be named 2019 Pharmacy Guild Pharmacy of the Year – and they’re thrilled.
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Flannery’s is the only NSW pharmacy to be shortlisted for the national award, which pharmacist and proprietor Sarah Hazell described as amazing acknowledgement.
Flannery’s, which evolved from a partnership between Joe Finn and Ron Flannery, celebrated 60 years in 2017.
It’s their community involvement, Ms Hazell believes, which has led to the award shortlist.
“Our involvement in the community sets us apart from other pharmacies. Flannery’s has been part of the Forbes community for just over 60 years and the pharmacy has always had a focus of giving back to the community,” Ms Hazell said.
“It is a great acknowledgement for our team and the wonderful work they do.”
That includes local sponsorship, and providing educational talks for local community groups.
The Lachlan Street business also underwent major refurbishments in 2016 that mean they now have four consultation rooms.
“When thinking about the services we provide and planning for future growth in these areas we decided when we did the refurbishment that we needed more than two consult rooms,” Ms Hazell said.
“We have three professional consult rooms and two of these are used most commonly by our pharmacists, interns and nurses.
“The third room is what we call our Gold Standard Consult Room and it includes a bed, curtain, sink and consulting desk and is used widely by other health professionals.
“This has been very successful and our patients really appreciate the services that are provided through that room. We have visiting podiatrists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, audiologists, occupational therapists, diabetes educators and so on.
“The fourth room is our community room. This concept was developed as a need in the town for parents to comfortably feed, change or weigh their baby.
“Many families living on the land may have to travel close to an hour to visit us and required a space to tend to their babies when in town. This also enables parents and carers to seek health advice.
“We thought it a good idea for the community to have a room to use; the community agrees and is really appreciative of it.”
Ms Hazell said local allied health providers and doctors supported the pharmacy’s strong focus on provision of professional services.
“We love our professional services and our involvement in helping to improve the health of our community and I think that can only grow with new services that pharmacists can provide,” Ms Hazell said.