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Welcome to the first homepage edition of i2P for 2012.
In many ways it has been a slow start to the New Year because of having to deal with the “leftovers” from 2011.
One of those items for i2P was that a third-party provider to the site did not advise of a code change to the security section in our subscribe panel, creating a range of frustrated subscribers not able to get on board.
We apologise to all those potential subscribers who were unable to register with us in the second half of 2011, but if you try once more you should have no problem.

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Volume 2012 Number 1

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The Road Not Taken

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Neil Retallick articles by this author...

Neil Retallick is a former General Manager, Merchandising, for National Pharmacies, the successful community pharmacy model owned by the Friendly Societies. Neil holds a Graduate Diploma of Marketing from Monash University, is a CPM and a graduate of the AICD.He began his career with Myer Stores Ltd and worked for FMCG companies including TIA (Sheridan) and Pacific Dunlop. Prior to these roles Neil worked for Cadbury Schweppes Drinks Division - Grocery, and Trimex Pty Ltd in Victoria in State management roles. He is currently Chief Executive Officer at the  Combined Dispensaries in Sydney and is a Member of the Advisory Board at Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science

The American poet Robert Frost did not have the Pharmacy Guild in mind when he wrote this incisive poem, but I think the decision-makers at the Guild need to read it.
It may help them understand the far-reaching consequences of the choices they are making today.
Frost describes walking through a wood and coming to a fork in the road. He contemplates the two. One seems to be a little more worn, probably the more popular choice. The other is a little more grassy, chosen less often. Neither path showed signs of recent travellers. Frost chooses the less worn road knowing he will never be able to reverse this seemingly trivial decision. He knows that the rest of his life is irreversibly impacted by this simple choice. His history can never be re-written.

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So it is with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. Decisions that seem obvious and logical today will change the future of community pharmacy in Australia forever.  I have written many times about issues involving the Guild. Followers will know that I have praised them on many occasions and been critical on others. This is a situation where I think the Guild could be doing more.

Have you read ‘The Roadmap’? This is the Guild’s “I have a dream…” manifesto but it is less dream than short term decision. Deciding which fork in the road to take rather than looking for where the Guild believes community pharmacy’s future lies.

The Roadmap takes the current realities of community pharmacy as its starting point. While this is a pragmatic approach, these current realities are actually disparate and driven more by the actions of members of the Guild rather than being directed by the Guild. Chemist Warehouse has a clear strategy that reflects the Guild view of what community pharmacy should be perhaps less than the Guild would prefer. The Terry White Group otherwise is forging ahead with an integrated healthcare model that proves a point that the Guild is only beginning to make. It certainly looks like catch up footy to me at least.

The Roadmap includes words such as:

“a focus for the Guild will be to develop a wider scope of national pharmacy programs…”

“… the key strengths of community pharmacy – accessibility and a high level of community trust…”

“the recent focus of the Guild has been coordination within community pharmacy. It now becomes a priority…”

”…pharmacy must know its limitations and also understand the financial and other constraints faced by governments…”

“…this report will assist to identify opportunities for improved utilisation of the community pharmacy network…”

And of course there is a reference to carbon footprint – a politically correct essential in any document intended to be read by decision-makers in the Federal Government.

The Roadmap is written in the context of what happens in community pharmacy today. That might be summarised as independently-owned businesses funded mainly by the Government for providing dispensing services for government-subsidised medicines. I know some will say that I should have rolled the pharmacy-based health programs into this description, but today these programs do not represent a substantial part of what community pharmacies across Australia are delivering to the average Australian.  Again the members of Guild seem to be ahead of their association.  Obesity is one of the areas of focus and here it is arguable that Tony Ferguson has done more to manage obesity in this country than any Guild-driven health program.

Why is it that some members of the Guild are already doing that which the Guild is planning to do? Chemist Warehouse identified an opportunity to better meet the needs of many average Australians. They knew what those people wanted and they have been successfully delivering lower cost medicines to them for some time. Perhaps the service levels are lower but if they are, their customers seem happy to keep coming back.  The Terry White Group picked up on weight management early and ran with it. Hundreds of thousands of Australians voted to go with them as they sought help with their health. Who pulled together the deal with Medicare first? Not the Guild.

The reason these pharmacy groups and many others are better meeting the needs of the average Australian is because they are listening to them. By contrast, the Roadmap’s references are a listing of Government reviews and economic modelling.

It was Henry Ford who said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’” Sometimes working from what you know is its own limiting factor. Sometimes working on one decision at a time in sequence, whilst logical, does not get you where you want to end up.

I think the Guild should commission a consumer research survey asking the average Australian what he or she wants a community pharmacy to be able to deliver in terms of both preventative and curative healthcare.  This would be a big survey that would provide statistically meaningful data that could be presented to Government as the best reason to go down that path – whatever that path is, to get to whatever goal the average Australian decides it should be. I am confident that the results would be what we in community pharmacy want them to be and that they would provide not just an end goal but a roadmap of how to get there. I’m also confident that that end goal would be bigger and brighter that just a ‘faster horse’, with more opportunities for community pharmacy.

It’s time to take off the blinkers of today’s package of Government funding and look to the future in a bolder and more relevant way. It may be logical to take the next step or steps as laid out in The Roadmap, but going down this road is irreversible. Will it take community pharmacy to where it wants to be in the long term?  

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