In this episode of The Pharmacy Planet Podcast, Boo Dhaliwal sits down with pharmacy owner, entrepreneur, and industry advocate Baba Akomolafe to discuss one of the biggest questions facing the profession today:
What does the future of independent pharmacy look like?
From studying pharmacy at the University of Lagos to building Christchurch Pharmacy in Essex, Baba shares a career journey spanning hospital pharmacy, community pharmacy ownership, healthcare entrepreneurship, and leadership.
But this episode goes far beyond one pharmacist's story.
The conversation explores why community pharmacy must adapt to survive, why relying solely on NHS funding is no longer sustainable, and how independent pharmacies can create new opportunities through collaboration, innovation, and diversification.
Blending Boo's practical business perspective with Baba's big-picture vision, the discussion challenges many of the assumptions pharmacy has traditionally relied upon.
This isn’t simply a conversation about pharmacy.
It’s a conversation about building the future of healthcare on the high street.
Baba’s pharmacy journey began in Lagos, Nigeria. Growing up in a family dominated by lawyers — his father, mother, older sister, and younger brother all solicitors — pharmacy wasn’t initially an obvious career choice. But after encouragement from his mother, Baba enrolled at the University of Lagos, the university he’d always wanted to attend.
“I knew the university I wanted to go to. I didn’t know what I was going to go there for,” he explains. “Mum said, ‘How about pharmacy?’ And I thought — as long as I go and do it in this university, I’m fine.”
That early exposure to multidisciplinary healthcare shaped his perspective on professional collaboration. At the University of Lagos, pharmacy students moved into the medical school environment after their first year, sharing space alongside doctors, dentists, and other clinicians. Baba’s own flatmates during that period were a dentist and a pharmacist — a kind of inter-professional camaraderie rarely found in UK training.
After completing his training in Nigeria, Baba moved to the UK in 1996, starting as a locum dispenser before securing a technician role at King George Hospital in 1997. Within a year, he had been offered a pre-registration position — and a career in pharmacy had properly begun.
Building Christchurch Pharmacy
After four years in hospital pharmacy — including time as an outpatient pharmacy manager — Baba made the leap into community ownership with just two weeks of community pharmacy experience behind him, from a work placement during his pre-reg.
“I thought it can’t be that hard,” he recalls. “I was the outpatient pharmacy manager. I looked at it and thought — yeah, it must be the same.”
It wasn’t. Community pharmacy introduced an entirely different environment: business ownership, competition between contractors, commercial decision-making, and a working culture where pharmacies operated in silos rather than as a healthcare team.
“I stepped into community pharmacy and I expected we’re all one department,” Baba says. “Then I realised we’re in competition. It was a culture shock.”
What followed was, by his own description, “a baptism of fire” — but the challenge became the foundation for Christchurch Pharmacy in Braintree, Essex, which continues to evolve and expand today.
Why Community Pharmacy Must Adapt
One of the strongest themes throughout the episode is adaptability. Baba argues that pharmacy’s future belongs to those willing to evolve quickly rather than those relying on traditional models.
“Every business in the world is going through ups and downs,” he says. “The adaptable professionals are the ones who will survive. Otherwise you just get left behind.”
His view is that challenging periods create the biggest opportunities — and that the first person to establish themselves after a shift in the ground is the winner.
“After a hurricane, the first person to establish is the new winner. What we’re saying is: don’t plant what you planted last time that got washed away. Try something that won’t be affected by what you lost.”
The End of the Traditional 10-Year Plan
One of the episode’s most memorable moments comes early, when Baba challenges the idea of long-term planning in pharmacy.
“We used to talk about 10-year plans. Anybody talking about 10-year plans now is a joker.”
In a world shaped by digital transformation, shifting healthcare policy, evolving patient behaviour, and the pace of change in technology, he believes businesses can no longer afford to assume the future will look like the present. The focus should be on direction and flexibility rather than rigid certainty.
For many independent pharmacies, that may require a significant shift in mindset.
Why the NHS Cannot Solve Pharmacy’s Problems
The discussion tackles one of the most debated issues in UK pharmacy: reliance on NHS funding. While both Boo and Baba agree that pharmacies deserve fair remuneration for the services they provide, Baba is clear that waiting for the NHS to rescue the sector is not a viable strategy.
“In 1948 when the NHS was established, people lived 68 years on average. Now they’re living 100 comfortably. How can you afford it? It can’t pay its own bills.”
Rather than relying entirely on NHS income, Baba argues that community pharmacies — which chose the independent contractor model specifically to operate as entrepreneurs — must take greater control of their own future by creating new revenue streams alongside traditional services.
“We all now need to diversify. We chose this side of the profession because we wanted to be entrepreneurs. I can create my own future.”
Diversification Beyond Dispensing
For Baba, diversification isn’t optional — it’s essential. Christchurch Pharmacy has expanded well beyond traditional dispensing, adding:
A private GP practice, now run by Baba’s wife — a former NHS GP who left after 20 years to achieve a better work-life balance
Domiciliary care services
Private consultations
Additional patient-focused healthcare services
The philosophy behind it is straightforward: community pharmacies have something many healthcare providers would pay dearly for — patients walking through the door every single day.
“Nobody has a greater footfall than community pharmacy. That means we can offer services to those who come in with an NHS request that nobody else can do. Dentists could. A GP cannot.”
The Untapped Power of Community Pharmacy Footfall
Baba returns repeatedly to the unique position community pharmacy occupies within UK healthcare. No other primary care setting sees patients as frequently, as accessibly, or with as much inherent trust.
“We have some options that they do not have. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight for what we deserve — but we need to maximise the other opportunities. Are we doing that? That is pharmacy 2026.”
Examples of untapped opportunity he highlights include preventative healthcare, health screening, private consultations, wellness programmes, and long-term condition management — all of which can be delivered through existing consultation rooms and patient relationships that pharmacies already have.
Baba’s Vision for a Digital Front Door
Perhaps the most ambitious part of the conversation is Baba’s vision for a unified digital platform for independent pharmacy — a single destination where patients across the country can find and book pharmacy services.
Drawing comparisons with Uber Eats, Deliveroo, the National Booking System, and even the World Wide Web itself, Baba argues that independent pharmacies are collectively bigger than Boots — yet have no shared front door through which patients, insurers, or healthcare partners can find them as a group.
“If we have one digital front door and we agree to that one door, they’ll come. Vitality wants business in the UK — they went to Boots because Boots has a national presence. We’re bigger than Boots. Indies are bigger than Boots. If we have one door, they’ll come and put a tab saying: ‘If you want a health check for Vitality, click here and pick a pharmacy.’”
Boo challenges aspects of the idea — particularly around competition and whether aggregating genuinely competitive services would work in pharmacy the way it does in food delivery — but acknowledges the scale of the vision:
“You’re talking about something that would require a full collective. I’m not sold on it yet — but I like your passion.”
Baba’s response draws on the Premier League as an analogy: clubs still compete fiercely, but the league itself is a collective that creates something bigger than any individual club could build alone.
Competition vs Collaboration in Pharmacy
Running through the entire conversation is the tension between competition and cooperation — and Baba’s belief that the two are not in opposition.
“We’ve been brought up as community pharmacies to see ourselves as in opposition. But unity and competition are not in conflict. You can be independent, yet independent together. It’s called interdependence.”
He argues that community pharmacies are limiting themselves by failing to present a united voice — to GPs, to healthcare partners, and to commissioners. His suggestion is simple: local pharmacies connecting on WhatsApp to send a single joint letter to GPs about pharmacy services would be more effective than six individual pharmacies each trying to get through the same door separately.
“The GPs are powerful because they’ve got a collective. I’m saying to you that even though we want to compete, we can compete by creating platforms on which we compete — and that would increase the people who want to work with us.”
Make Pharmacy Great Again
As with every Pharmacy Planet Podcast episode, Boo closes by asking his guest to join the revolution — to make pharmacy great again.
Baba is an enthusiastic convert, having already used the phrase himself at a pharmacy business event.
“Pharmacy is an absolutely beautiful profession. It’s so underrated. The NHS is stupid not to take full advantage of what we have.”
He closes with a message to the profession: stop waiting for external solutions, start building from the inside, and recognise that the combination of clinical expertise, community footfall, and entrepreneurial freedom that community pharmacy offers is genuinely unique — and genuinely powerful.
Giving Back Through Charity
The episode concludes by highlighting Farleigh Hospice in Broomfield, Chelmsford — a charity close to Baba’s heart. The hospice has supported many patients and families within his local community through diagnosis, treatment, and end of life.
Christchurch Pharmacy has pledged a donation of £500, and Baba and his team are fundraising towards a target of £5,000 through a full marathon walk — having already raised approximately £2,000 through cake sales, a 24/7 collection point, and community events attended by local MP James Cleverly.
“It’s a reminder that community pharmacy isn’t just about business. It’s about serving communities and supporting people through some of life’s most difficult moments.”
Baba Akomolafe: We used to talk about 10-year plans. Anybody talking about 10-year plans now is a joker. Hi, my name is Baba Akomolafe from Christ Church Pharmacy. Welcome to the Pharmacy Planet Podcast.
Boo Dhaliwal: Thanks for joining us at the Pharmacy Planet Podcast, Baba.
Baba Akomolafe: Thank you.
Boo Dhaliwal: Baba, pharmacist for a long time, I know that. How’d you get into pharmacy?
Baba Akomolafe: I bet you’ve seen my grey hair. It’s not because of pharmacy, but yeah. How did I get into pharmacy? Mum.
Boo Dhaliwal: Really?
Baba Akomolafe: Yeah. I actually knew the uni I wanted to go to. I didn’t know what I was gonna go there for. I schooled in Lagos in Nigeria. Born in England, went for schooling in Nigeria. And we lived about 20 minutes away from University of Lagos. That was where the party was.
Boo Dhaliwal: So Lagos is massive, right?
Baba Akomolafe: Massive. As a teenager I thought, “That’s the university I wanna go. I don’t know what I wanna study.” I was a little bit good at art, so Mum was thinking, “Where do you wanna go?” Dad’s a solicitor. Mum’s a solicitor. Older sister’s a solicitor. Younger brother is a solicitor. So everybody, for the first four, are solicitors except myself. I saw what they were doing and it was clear I wasn’t interested in that direction. Mum said, “How about pharmacy?” And I thought — as long as I go and do it in this university where the party is, I’m fine.
Boo Dhaliwal: So what university was that?
Baba Akomolafe: University of Lagos. Pharmacy in University of Lagos — once you do the first year, you get moved to medical school. So the dentists, the pharmacists, the GPs and doctors have their own separate section. Which I think worked well for me because when you talk about thinking like doctors — my roommates were a dentist and a pharmacist. You get that camaraderie already. And it was a teaching hospital as well, which is where I did my pre-reg.
Boo Dhaliwal: Oh right, okay.
Baba Akomolafe: That was my journey. Mum says, “How about pharmacy?” Got to the university I like. Carried on in the medical school, in my pre-reg, which is where I met my wife when she came to do her house job.
Boo Dhaliwal: Your wife’s a doctor, right?
Baba Akomolafe: She’s a doctor, yeah. So I came back to England in 1996 and started working as a locum dispenser. Then I got a job as a technician in King George Hospital in ’97. When I got there, I realised they had a pre-reg post. I’d just done the conversion course. They gave me the pre-reg post because someone wasn’t available. I didn’t realise it was difficult to get a pre-reg position in a hospital.
Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah, it’s not easy.
Baba Akomolafe: No. But I got that opportunity, and that was the beginning of my career. I stayed there for about four years. I had two weeks experience in community during my pre-reg, and I thought: that’s it. That’s what I want. Three years into working in a hospital, I bought a pharmacy. I said, “This can’t be that hard.”
Boo Dhaliwal: Two weeks experience and you bought a pharmacy?
Baba Akomolafe: Two weeks experience as a pre-reg work placement. I was the outpatient pharmacy manager at the hospital. I looked at it and thought, “Yeah, it must be the same.” Then I stepped into community pharmacy and I expected we’re all one department. Then I realised we’re in competition. Why are they all working in silos? It was a culture shock.
Boo Dhaliwal: So you’re in Braintree, in Essex. Getting contracts or pharmacies wasn’t easy back then either.
Baba Akomolafe: A lot of competition. I actually bought it off someone. When people hear the name Christchurch Pharmacy — because of my faith, people think I named it that. But no, somebody else named it Christchurch. I bought it from the lady, having given up my job to work for her for three months. At the end of three months, we were able to buy her out. It wasn’t an easy process. There were lots of things that happened that shouldn’t have happened — a baptism of fire into community pharmacy.
Boo Dhaliwal: UK pharmacy — where do you see it right now? Where are the problems? Where are the plus points?
Baba Akomolafe: We’re not unique when it comes to ups and downs. Every business in the world is going through ups and downs. The adaptable professionals are the ones who will survive, otherwise you just get left behind. We used to talk about 10-year plans. Anybody talking about 10-year plans now is a joker. Depending on what somebody puts on social media today, there goes your 10-year plan. You’ve gotta be quick to respond. Where do I see community pharmacy right now? Challenging, but great opportunity.
Boo Dhaliwal: Okay.
Baba Akomolafe: Because what happens when you’re challenged is this: the ground that everybody’s standing on shifts, and the first person to plant on it is the winner. After a hurricane, the first person to establish is the new winner. And don’t plant what you planted the last time that got washed away. Try something that you know will not be affected by what you lost.
Boo Dhaliwal: A young pharmacist said to you why should they buy a pharmacy now?
Baba Akomolafe: I said, “How many years of experience do you have in Pharmacy First?” He said, “Two years.” I said, “How many years experience do you think I have in Pharmacy First?” Two years. It’s a leveler. Nobody has more than two years experience in Pharmacy First. There are new things happening right now creating new markets for pharmacy. There’s longevity. There’s lots of other things that pharmacy has been asked to do that we can use our consultation rooms for. But what we are all doing is thinking that the NHS will be the one to solve our problem.
Boo Dhaliwal: They’re not gonna solve our problems.
Baba Akomolafe: They can’t. In 1948 when the NHS was established, people lived 68 years on average. Now they’re living 100 comfortably. How can you afford it? It can’t pay its own bills. Somehow we’ve all got to agree that everybody’s gonna accept some level of cutbacks. Fight for as much as you can get — there’s no doubt about that. But we are on a queue of people who are fighting. We all now need to diversify. In the UK, we as community pharmacists chose this side of the profession because we wanted to be entrepreneurs. If I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur, I would have stayed in my job in the hospital.
Boo Dhaliwal: You would have had a cushy pension.
Baba Akomolafe: Yeah, exactly. But I chose to come into community pharmacy because I can create my own future. Christchurch Pharmacy, for example, now has a GP practice — private. Has domiciliary care. Nobody has a greater footfall than community pharmacy. That means we can sell anything we want to those who come in with an NHS request. Did you know nobody else can do that? Dentists could. A GP cannot do that.
Boo Dhaliwal: The NHS doesn’t pay pharmacy contractors other than for delivery of a service.
Baba Akomolafe: What I would love to see is an experiment where the government offers pharmacists and says, “Look, I will pay your bills and I’ll tell you how much you can earn” — or — “I don’t pay your bills, and you can use the NHS patients to create wealth.” Which one would you choose, Boo?
Boo Dhaliwal: I get what you mean. If there’s an extra delivery of service that we can do, we can take advantage of it.
Baba Akomolafe: GPs cannot do what you just said. It’s called conflict of interest. They’ve paid the bills and then they’ve squeezed more than they paid in. My wife worked 20 years as a GP. I told her for three, four, five years, “This is not working. Come work for us.” She gave up and came to work for us. Now she’s got a perfect work-life balance. From one consultation the other day, she saw a patient who said, “Do you do hugs?” — because he felt so relieved being able to see a GP who would look him in the eye rather than staring at a computer. And at the end of it say, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” Because for a 30-minute appointment, she’s getting well paid. In GP work, you only had 10 minutes.
Boo Dhaliwal: So they’re not happy even though their bills are being paid, and we’re not happy because we are underpaid. Everybody’s unhappy.
Baba Akomolafe: But what I’m saying is this: we have some options that they do not have. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight for what we deserve — but we need to maximise the other opportunities. Are we doing that? That is pharmacy 2026.
Boo Dhaliwal: Traditionally, UK pharmacies rely upon NHS income to sustain the business model — around 90% of most independent community pharmacies. Now private services have started coming in. Things the state doesn’t fund: travel vaccinations, weight loss, earwax removal. And you know what, Baba? Many years ago, when we started private services, it worked well. You know why? Because no one else was doing it. Now everyone’s cottoned on. The advantage we used to have is not so much of an advantage anymore.
Baba Akomolafe: That takes me to something I wanted to raise with you, Boo. We’re limiting ourselves by not working as a collective. Competition is not a bad thing. But when you create something as a collective — something like the Premier League — the Premier League is a collective that allows for greater competition. What if Manchester had their own league, London had their own league? By coming together to create a Premier League, they created something bigger. So in pharmacy — there is no digital front door that represents community pharmacy. A singular one.
Boo Dhaliwal: A singular one? For private services?
Baba Akomolafe: Not just private services, even NHS services. The flu and COVID appointment system — the National Booking System — you go there, put your geolocation, and you find a pharmacy. That works. Now, what about a digital front door for everything else? If somebody is looking for an appointment for sinusitis, you go to one place. That place leads you to book with any of our pharmacies across the country. We would attract more private businesses than we can actually handle.
Boo Dhaliwal: What you’re saying is there should be one digital front door for every single pharmacy in the whole country to access a service.
Baba Akomolafe: Exactly. The reason my wife and I started thinking about this was we wrote to Stephen Kinnock through our MP. My question to him was: I’ve got flu and COVID availability on the National Booking System. Why don’t you just put the seven Pharmacy First conditions on there? Then anybody could pick any of those conditions. The NHS is spending £2 million on awareness for Pharmacy First but advertising the wrong thing. You should be advertising the platform. Everybody goes digital to look for an appointment. But now we’re competing with SEOs, and these people can’t find us. Guess where they go instead? They go to the GP. And the GP is now being expected to refer to us because we don’t have a digital front door.
Boo Dhaliwal: Changing patient behaviour is hard work. It’s like getting a million emails saying “change your password” — until you get locked out, you don’t change it. Patients are gonna keep going to the GP until the GP says, “You can’t come here for this.”
Baba Akomolafe: But that digital door for them to see us doesn’t exist. Think about Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Would you have ever believed that every Chinese restaurant who wants to sell digitally will plug into one door? They’re not even the same profession. You sell Chinese, I sell Indian. But somehow someone said, “I’ll get you more business.” They are digital front doors. We are pharmacists. We are more intelligent than them. Why can’t we understand what the power of a digital front door is?
Boo Dhaliwal: The difference is McDonald’s, KFC — they are selling their own proprietary goods. A travel vaccination is the same proprietary product — a shot in the arm. So why would you compete with four or five people as a collective?
Baba Akomolafe: McDonald’s didn’t stop advertising their own brand because they’re on Deliveroo. Carry on with your SEO. What we’re saying is: if the GPs in the neighbourhood want to speak to the pharmacists in the neighbourhood — you want them to knock on six doors? You’re gonna wait forever. We need to present a united voice. GPs are powerful because they’ve got a collective. I’m saying that even though we want to compete, we can compete by creating platforms on which we compete — and that would increase the people who want to work with us.
Baba Akomolafe: What I’m looking for, apart from grassroots, is the collective capacity of pharmacy. If we come as a collective, we’re so much more powerful. You can be independent yet independent together. It’s called interdependence. Hence the Premier League. We can compete by creating platforms on which we compete — and that increases people who want to work with us: health insurers, commercial partners, all looking for one place to say, “If I want one of you, where do I go?”
Boo Dhaliwal: Baba, I want to cover your outfit. This man — the bow tie is your thing, isn’t it?
Baba Akomolafe: I’ve got a very serious face. I haven’t got a middle ground — I’m either smiling or frowning. The feedback is welcome, but I just feel the bow tie softens my hard look. And I like dressing up and looking smart.
Boo Dhaliwal: I was thinking there’s a problem with this podcast. If anyone is searching Baba and Boo, they probably think it’s going to be like a toddler cartoon.
Baba Akomolafe: Baba and Boo — some three-year-olds are like, “Who are these two weirdos talking about pharmacy?”
Boo Dhaliwal: So if there are any two or three-year-olds expecting Baba and Boo — no, no, no. It’s not like you thought. So yeah, I think it’s gonna be an issue getting the podcast out there. But anyway, I just love the outfit. I think it’s great.
Boo Dhaliwal: Baba, as you know, I’ve started a revolution to make pharmacy great again.
Baba Akomolafe: Well done.
Boo Dhaliwal: And I think pharmacy’s totally underrated. You know we’re the best profession on earth. You’ve got two choices — bucket hat or cap.
Baba Akomolafe: I’ll go for the cap.
Boo Dhaliwal: Baba, as you know, anyone who comes on, we ask them to choose their own charity and donate something towards it. Who’s your charity going to be, and how much?
Baba Akomolafe: Farleigh Hospice in Broomfield, in Chelmsford, Essex. It’s a local hospice. They’ve looked after a lot of our patients from when they were diagnosed to death. And we’re going to be walking a full marathon for them in May. We’ve raised about £2,000 so far, we’re aiming for £5,000. And as a company, we’re going to be putting in £500.
Boo Dhaliwal: Absolutely fabulous. So £500 towards the hospice. But even then, you’re raising a large amount for them anyway.
Baba Akomolafe: We are. We’ve sold cakes, and when we did our 24/7 collection point, we had James Cleverly over there — fantastic guy, very supportive of pharmacy — and patients coming in donating.
Boo Dhaliwal: Right. Okay. Quickfire questions — these are AI-generated so I don’t know what they are until I open them. What is one thing you’re surprisingly good at apart from pharmacy?
Baba Akomolafe: I think I’m a good dad.
Boo Dhaliwal: We’ve got one of your sons here — Dara, rate your dad out of 10.
Baba Akomolafe: He’s not saying anything. He’s saying zip. Well, to be fair, he works for us now. His salary’s on the line as well.
Boo Dhaliwal: Would you rather always be slightly overdressed or slightly underdressed?
Baba Akomolafe: Slightly overdressed. I’m comfortable with being overdressed.
Boo Dhaliwal: If you were not in pharmacy, what would you be doing?
Baba Akomolafe: Weatherman. Because again, I can get overdressed for just saying “and the weather over here is 12 degrees.” But in real terms — running a business is where my heart was. My mum thought: if you do pharmacy, you can have both — a bit of science and a bit of business. And that’s what led to community pharmacy. So I would’ve been a businessman.
Boo Dhaliwal: Pharmacy is so good. It’s so underrated. The NHS is stupid not to take advantage.
Baba Akomolafe: We’ve got to say to them, “Get lost” — not fully, but we need their footfall. Yeah. It’s a beautiful profession.
Boo Dhaliwal: Well, thank you. I must congratulate you on 100,000 subscribers.
Baba Akomolafe: Absolutely. I, personally, am very proud a pharmacist can achieve that from just having fun.
Boo Dhaliwal: Hey, at the end of the day, pharmacy as a profession — it’s an intriguing, interesting profession. So it’s not surprising people want to know about it. Well, thank you so much, Baba, for coming on the Pharmacy Planet Podcast. It’s been great having you.
Baba Akomolafe: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Boo Dhaliwal: And that’s it for this time, folks.
Baba Akomolafe: So you’ve been listening to Baba and Boo. Like, subscribe and share.
This article is for general information. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the participants and are intended for general discussion purposes. Nothing in this episode constitutes medical, legal, or financial advice.
