Jean Jones, co-owner of The Pharmacy, Windmill Lane, Manchester, tells her story

Jean Jones first got heavily involved with weight management a few years ago when she managed to get herself and her team onto a PCT weight management course intended for surgery staff. “My business partner and I considered this investment in staff training as essential to our drive to be more proactive on public health issues and our business development,” she says.

“We committed to three staff out of the pharmacy for an afternoon a week, for three months. But the investment paid off with the increased knowledge and confidence developed, especially with consultation skills transferable to any topic and also the relationships we made with the practice nurses we met on the course.

“We have been running the Lipotrim programme for about three years. Our foremost aim is to help our customers succeed in losing weight and improve their health. We aim to build lasting relationships built on trust, empathy and making a difference to people’s lives. Secondly, our highly-skilled team are knowledgeable about healthy eating and a lifestyle approach to weight reduction. We use this knowledge to leverage the Lipotrim programme with before, during and after support.

“Weight management is a very sensitive issue but our staff observe customers who browse the shelves, our Health Point and leaflet stand for weight management advice or products – this acts as a conversation opener. Also, in our private consultation room we have various aids such as a healthy portion plate, a portion-measuring cup, weighing scales and a waist tape measure.

“Most of our customers come from word of mouth. Lipotrim allows us to build loyal customer relationships and as we are a small suburban pharmacy, at least a mile away from any GP, we have to develop rapport with customers in order to ensure return visits and footfall. We also have in-store promotion such as weight management leaflets and Lipotrim posters. We advertise our full range of services in local GP surgeries, clinics, libraries and on the back of our pharmacy delivery van.

Building loyalty

“As our philosophy is always to build lifelong relationships with customers, we find our successes with Lipotrim help to build loyalty and repeat visits after the programme has ended. We offer continual free, weekly weigh-ins for those who would like them – two minutes of our time in return for customer loyalty. We have had many clinical success stories over the years, with diabetes and blood pressure in particular. For those customers who we help to come off their blood pressure medication, as follow-up we manage a service with their GPs where the patients come to us, rather than the surgery, for regular blood pressure readings.”

“We hope that participation in the Lipotrim programme will be one element that helps us boost our rating with GPhC inspections due to the relationship building and general healthcare improvements that we can easily demonstrate and evidence with Patient Tracker.”