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Kerry Ellis discovers what one village pharmacy reveals about the power of support…

In a village like Thornton-le-Dale in Yorkshire, community pharmacy isn’t an abstract concept, it’s personal. It’s the cornerstone of the community, the place to turn to when you are unwell, unsure or in need of professional healthcare advice.

Beckside Pharmacy, led by Barbara Obasi, is exactly that kind of place. But behind its smooth-running exterior lies a pharmacy that balances exceptional patient care with the growing demands of running a modern healthcare business.

It’s also where everyday moments of care surface, like conversations with regular customers such as Sue, a valued member of the community who knits bonding squares and blankets for premature babies in intensive care at a local children’s hospital.

Sue’s knitting helps mothers stay connected to their babies when physical closeness isn’t always possible. Mothers wear the squares before swapping them with their babies, helping with bonding, lactation, and comfort.

“It’s a pleasure to do it,” Sue says. These are the kinds of quiet acts of care that pass through a community pharmacy: small, human moments that rarely make headlines but matter deeply to the people involved.

Behind this calm, familiar setting, Beckside Pharmacy also carries the less visible pressures shared by many independent pharmacies. Alongside patient care sits the realities of rising costs, workforce challenges, evolving NHS expectations, and patients with increasingly complex needs.

Running a modern pharmacy now requires clinical expertise, business acumen, and resilience in equal measure. When the Alphega Pharmacy team visited Beckside a few months ago, they weren’t there to impose a template or deliver a one-size-fits-all solution.

They were there to listen, to understand how the pharmacy operates and what support is genuinely useful. That visit offered a clear lens on what effective support for independent pharmacies can look like in practice.

What makes Beckside a useful case study is not that it faces different challenges, but that it shows what can happen when support helps pharmacies manage complexity without disrupting what already works.

Access to business guidance helps translate day-to-day challenges into manageable decisions, supporting sustainability while keeping patient care at the centre.

Training and clinical service development resources allow pharmacies like Beckside to grow their services with confidence, particularly in communities where access to other healthcare providers may be limited and the local pharmacy plays an increasingly central role.

What stands out is how understated the impact is. There’s no sense of reinvention or loss of identity. Beckside Pharmacy still feels like a local constant, shaped by long-standing relationships and familiar faces.

That continuity is evident in relationships with locals like Sue. The support around the pharmacy hasn’t changed its character; it has helped preserve it.

Looked at more broadly, this reflects a wider reality for independent pharmacies. Keeping up with policy changes, service expectations, and regulatory developments can be demanding, especially for small teams.

Access to shared knowledge, peer experience, and timely information can reduce isolation and make change feel more manageable.

Kerry Ellis is an Alphega business mentor.