The Pharmacy Planet Podcast: Pharmacy X, Hub-and-Spoke & the Future of UK Pharmacy – A Deep-Dive with Paul Mayberry

Paul: well first thank you for inviting me and really looking forward to it. , so yeah, I started, went to Cardiff University, did my pharmacy degree in Cardiff, did my pre-reg with Lloyd's.

Worked for Lloyd's for a, a couple of months as on relief, uh, before working for independent. The reason I went to work for independent straight away is because I wanted to have my own pharmacies, so I wanted to, to learn on the ground rather than working for a corporate for too long. , did that for three years.

Struggled to find a pharmacy for sale back in those days.

Boo: This is in Wales, right?

Paul: This is in Wales, yeah. This is like 1994.

Boo: Yeah. , it's hard getting shops those days.

Paul: It was hard.

Boo: Yeah, it was impossible!

Paul: I t was. I was Literally tear ing my hair out. That's what happened to try to, to try to find, find the pharmacies.

And what actually happened was my wife was also a pharmacist. We met in university together. , and she was doing some maternity cover for a pharmacy in Pontypool. Yeah. , the, the girl she was replacing. , she was gonna take some time off. So I went to see the boss to see if I could get, get a job there.

Yeah. And he said, oh, I'm sick and tired of that place. , do you wanna buy it? I go, yeah. Okay. So I went to the banks, banks wouldn't lend me the money, so I went back to him and said,  I'd love to buy you a pharmacy, Mr. Jones, but I can't afford it. And he said that, well, I'll lend you the money. And I said, you lend me the money.

Boo: Wow.

Paul: He said, And I, I thought my father-in-law was an accountant and he said, well, be careful. You know what, how is he gonna tie you in? Is it gonna be expensive? Yeah. And I, he just said like, I'll just, I'll, I'll lend you the money. I'm gonna charge you more in interest than the banks would, but as soon as you can pay me off, pay me off.

Which, which I did. So I went in, they were doing 3000 items in the June. By the November when I actually took over, we were doing 4,000 items. Never looked back. Paid him off in 18 months and away we went. 

Boo: Well, branches in Wales used to always be a bit of a premi as well, didn't they? I mean. There's, there's not a lot of pharmacies in Wales in the first place, right?

Paul: There were around, around about the time, about 714 pharmacies. They got when the contractor limitation changed because there was an OFT report back in 2006 with allowed a hundred hour pharmacies in England and. Yeah, in direct pharmacies, that didn't happen in Wales. They rejected that, so we always stayed round about 700, whereas England, then it increased by 3000.

Yeah. We just stayed the same. and it's gone down a little bit now, 686, so there was never that opportunity to buy lots of pharmacies. You just had that sort of just waiting to, to buy somebody who was retiring and therefore it was expensive. 

Boo: But you still grew, right? You, you did pick up a couple of other pharmacies after that, right?

Paul: Yeah. So after that then we, we, but I bought my next one in 99 and then over the next couple of years. We bought more, , got got seven, and then this OFT report came out, which meant everything was on hold because we didn't know whether they were gonna allow everybody to open the pharmacy Yeah.

Willy-nilly or what. So we, we paused on that and I, and, and then my focus went on other things. So I didn't really focus on growing the group any more than that. So, although I've got seven pharmacies myself, it's been like that for 20 years. 

Boo: That's when you jped into the tech side of business, right?

Getting Into Technology & Robotics

Boo: Yeah. And what is it? Just a natural passion. You've always been into tech or something?

Paul: I've always, always,

Boo: where did this start? Was it robotics or something or, 

Paul: yeah, so I was always, I was always like, I worked at the school so long ago that we didn't do computer studies in school, so I. Me and my friend from up the road, we used to play around with the ZX spectre.

I, so I always, I, so I always liked computers and tech, but never had any formal training in it. , and then. I saw that when, with, with pharmacy then I, I liked deficiencies. I, I hated doing stuff that were, were wasted processes. So I, I liked doing things efficiently, which then led me on to robots.

So in 2011, I bought my first robot, , with the idea of doing hub and spoke. So we were the first company, it's actually an article in the chemists and drugs in 2012 saying maybe pharmacy were the first company in the country to do hub and spoke dispensing before Boots or Lloyds, any of them. 

Boo: Okay. And if I, if I fast forward now, we'll go back again 'cause I know you did a lot more since then.

But just fast forward, what do you think are hubs and spokes now? 

Paul: I think before you look at hub and spoke, you've gotta make sure that your pharmacy is run as efficiently as possible.

Boo: sorry, just for any viewers who are watching, wondering what Hub and spoke is, I keep forgetting to have to explain myself, hub and spoke what they think is, in terms of dispensing, you can make it more efficient by sending it to a hub, getting it dispensed there. Getting it back to a pharmacy as a spoke, and therefore you're dispensing time and efficiency using robotics, AI or whatever there is, is hopefully reduced, reduced resource. So it costs you less in the pharmacy in theory, and pharmacists and staff are freed up to do other stuff. That's the theory, right?

Hub and Spoke Dispensing: Does It Actually Work?

Paul: That's the theory.

Boo: Does it work? 

Paul: Depends. Depends what tech you're doing. Alright. Okay. So, so bear in mind, so my background was doing hub and spoke robots. Yeah. Looking at hub and spoke. So when we then developed our own PMR Yeah. Which we needed to, to be able to do hub and spoke. Yeah. And to do efficient dispensing.

we made the dispensary efficient, but we made it so that the inefficiencies that other PMRs. Bring into the, into the system. So yes, you're taking some of the stuff out of a dispensary and sending it to a central hub. Yeah. But that's the easy stuff. Yeah. Picking stuff off the shelf and sticking a label on it.

Yeah. Is the easy stuff. You still having to download the prescriptions, you're still doing the clinical checks. You're then deciding which prescriptions are gonna go to the central hub and which of gonna. Gonna stay. You then send it off. The easy stuff is done there, it comes back. You then need to reconcile it.

You need to put it on the shelf. You need to spend time with the patient. So we were seeing it, although we were sending 70% of our prescriptions in the old days. Yeah. With an old PMR, we were sending 70% of our prescriptions to the central hub, but maybe only 25 to 30% of the work was being done there. And it was an awful lot of extra work because you're still doing all the pro the prescription management.

Extra work in getting the prescriptions over to the hub and then the easy bit was done over there and then comes back to you. So it was moving the work it didn't work with, with, with those legacy PMRs. That's why we've done, now we've developed it and now we're doing it again. 'cause we stopped for years because we couldn't make it work.

So now because of what the, the tech was at the time. So now what we do download the prescriptions from the spine. Each of the pharmacists can then do the clinical check, save the clinical check. So they. They're only checking it once rather than have to check every the same items every single month.

So they're only checking new items, new patients, any changes and high risk drugs. But otherwise, once they've checked it, they can save that check for 12 months. Prescription comes down or the system automatically identifies what's Hubable. I dunno whether that's a real word, but I'm gonna try to get jurisdiction.

Boo: Trademark the thing. If anyone uses it, they have to pay you.

Paul: Yes. That's a good idea. Yeah. So we identify the Hubable items. Yeah. And send, it automatically goes to the hub. So the, the, the dispensers. The pharmacists don't need to do anything. The system knows. Send it all to hub, it goes to the hub. 

Boo: I've never had a problem with systems. I think systems work great in terms of Hub & spoke s. I'll be honest, I've crunched the nbers so many times, Paul, I've done it on the back of a fag packet. I've done it a bit more intensive. I've looked at it in various different ways. It's not the system that's an issue. It feels like we're just, you're just moving cost from one place to somewhere else and then it comes back again.

I can't see any sufficient, efficiency saving unless you are a really busy pharmacy. When I mean really busy, I'm talking about. You know, in the top maybe 10% of pharmacies or 20% of pharmacies or something like that. Yeah. Generally by and large, I looked at, and I've looked at the, anything that goes to a hub and comes back.

You're just moving workload around. I, I don't see the benefit, but maybe am I missing something? 

Paul: Yeah, I think, I think you are. I look, I'm not a big advocate for hub and spoke. I did it myself. We were the pioneers of it. You know, people like Proscript came down to look and see what we were doing so they could build in what we were doing into their, into their software 16 years ago.

but you see the you don't see a problem with the system, but when you start looking at it and thinking. Like you did of saying, well, okay, using the system that I'm using at the moment and using a hub, it doesn't work, but it's for it to work, everything's gotta be, everything's gotta be efficient.

So when you're downloading prescriptions, so you imagine the The perfect workflow Yeah. Would be you download the prescription, pharmacist doesn't need to check it 'cause they've done it before. Yeah. The system identifies what's Hubable or not and it appears on the screen in the hub and you've got somebody at that screen with the name pops up.

You do select all. Cut, pick it. If you are doing it on a robot, you've gotta work with the robot systems as well, because the worst thing you can do with a robot is start dispensing five items and only four items come out. Because if you've done that, then you've run out, you've run out the stock, you need to manually order it.

It's gotta come in the next day. You've got these four items with labels on it that you've gotta, I've, I've done it all before with it, so. You've also gotta make sure that the system's in the hub work so you don't start dispensing until you know that you've got all the stock for this particular patient.

, and to do that, you need to have the, the PMR working with the, with the robots. So then once you can see that I'm not, I've only gonna dispense for these people, the people I am gonna start for, leave that because the system will automatically order it for you. It'll come in the next day, goes up into the robot.

Sinks the stock. So you're only dispensing where you've got all the stock and it's all original packs, no splits, no CDs, nothing that adds complication. Yeah, the stock comes out. As it comes out. We scan, label, print bag, scan, label, print bag. Because you're only producing labels by scanning that barcode.

You can't make a dispensing error, therefore doesn't need an a CT check. So just reviewing that whole process, downloads the prescription. No pharmacist check. Nobody sending it to the hub. It just appears at the hub, dispensed at the hub, bagged up, ready to go back, or posted directly from the hub. So it's gotta be really efficient to make it work.

The Real Cost Analysis of Hub and Spoke

Paul: But there are ways of doing it. 

Boo: So now I'm, I've looked at a bit of a basic view. That was a, that was quite a, that was quite a technical analysis to show you exactly where it's efficient. But, my basic view is right when you hub, obviously, obviously has rent rates, staff cost. Yeah.

There's your hub cost full stop. Right?

Paul: So that's, that's a hundred grand is Yeah.

Boo: Yeah. Then you've got your logistics costs. Yeah, yeah. Then you've got your time lag between when it goes to the hub and when it doesn't. So that's a cost and whatever your checking in process is. There is a process, right? So you've got all these different bits and pieces.

So I ask anyone who's done, hub, and spoke, and maybe if there's someone out there who can actually show me on a P & L how it's worked. I'll turn around and say, is there need to spend? Oh, you can save this many hours. You'll save 20% or your staff time to turn percent of this. They give me, I've heard everything.

Yeah. And then I say, right. Here's your P & L . This was your staff cost before. This is your staff cost. Now, is this accurate? Yeah. And it's never accurate. And then they always say to me, they do more stuff now though. Yeah. Oh, do they Now, if they do more stuff now that's really good that they do more stuff.

Yeah. So what more output have you got? So let's measure that then. So how many extra? What have you done that's extra? And when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, there's more time to do something that no one's done. Yeah. No one's really created any efficiency in terms of staffing, actual P & L costs.

So I'm dubious. All I keep saying to anyone is I'm not, I'm not writing it off. It may work. It may not work. Yeah. 

The way I see it, I'd love to see someone's P & L and turn around and say, there you go. My staffing cost is. Bang down. Yeah. And there's no doubt, including everything, so you've gotta include all the logistics and the, bits and pieces.

Paul: I, I, I totally agree with you. I'm, I, I wouldn't, I don't think I'd be doing hub and spoke apart from the fact that  I've already got a robot. Yeah. It's already in the same building as my pharmacies. So there's no additional rent, no additional cost of robot, no additional pharmacist. We looked at exactly you said, we looked at per in a unit.

You gotta buy the robot, you've gotta spend the rent, you've gotta put a pharmacy. It doesn't work. If you can do it within an existing pharmacy, maybe. Oh, okay. Unless you've, unless you're really big. But I, but I agree with you. If it wasn't for the fact that we already had the robot, we would be using our PMR to make the dispensing as efficient as possible.

And then, and if, when you are using. You looking at the technology like we did, and I, I can dis discuss how we, we got to where we did, but it was just looking at all your, the inefficiencies within a normal pharmacy, the cost base, the stock levels that you've got. Just review it all and come up with the best scenario.

The Birth of Pill Time

Boo: Paul, after the robots I've seen you, were you, involved in pill time, right? Is that right? Is that CEO of pill time no less! Founder of pill time.

Paul: Yeah. Founder of pill time. Mm-hmm.

Boo: Wow. Right now, pill time is one of the biggest dispensaries in the UK currently. Is that correct?

Paul: Yeah, top 10.

Boo: Top 10 dispensary in the UK currently.

So it's got some serious amount of throughput?

Paul: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Boo: So you were CEO and Founder. How did that come about? What was the story there and like how come? What's with the Exit? So what happened there?

Paul: So. Like the technology, like robots. , then a few years ago, missed being like 20 13, 20 14, I went to Expo Farm in Dusseldorf.

Boo: Okay.

Paul: So these robots as you do, as you do,

Boo: yeah.

What a fun holiday That must've been. 

You know what I mean, I, 

I'll put it on my list, you know what I mean? Yeah. right Next to Hawaii. Yeah.

Paul: But, but, but farm, you know, pharmacy is my life. A live and breathe pharmacy. So I've got no other hobbies apart from pharmacy, different parts of pharmacy.

But yeah, so went to a trade show into sortof, see these robots and they're producing these pouches. And I said, what's this about? And they said, well, if you're doing lots of trays, then maybe you can make some staff savings by dispensing it with one of these robots. And I said, oh, I dunno about that.

Anyway, I went back with some samples and I went and saw a care agency. And a care agency agency. So at the time I had a marketing manager within Mayberry Pharmacy and he set me up with a, with a manager of a care agency. And he was really pleased about this and I knew that. Really, we don't really deal with care agencies because the care carers go in, but the relationship is still with the patients and the pharmacies.

Yeah. So there's very little that we can do with the, with the care agency. So I was, I, I was didn't have much hope, but when I talked to this with this manager, it went as, I thought this wasn't a lot we could do. And then as, as a throwaway comment at the end, I said, well, what do you think of these sachets, these pouches that I've got here?

And she said, well, tell me about these. I said, well, everything that you need to take a patient needs to take at a particular time is. Pouched up by the dose at a particular time, in a clearly labeled easy to open pouch that comes out in the order that you need to take it. Mm-hmm. From, from the box. And she said, that sounds amazing.

She said, so there's You know, if, if I had my carers, we given that they can't make a dispensing error, and I said, no, they can't. They said, this is the answer to my prayer. She said, hang on, what if it's wrong in the pouch? I said, that's my responsibility and I've got what? I'd have all checking mechanisms on that.

Yeah, she said that. She said, sign me up. Well, at that point, I think, right, okay. Gon get one of these robots. So that's, that's how it started. So get, get the pouching robot brought it into maybe pharmacy in the same building. No extra cost apart from the cost of the, the robot start dispensing moved. Did do hub and spoke.

Then for the, for the, for the what were tray patients? We were already doing manual hub and spoke, but then we started moving, dispensing 'em to the pouches. Patients liked them apart from visually impaired 'cause they like the feel of the trays on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, breakfast, lunch and tea. But everybody else, we moved onto the pouches and I thought, do you know what, I got something.

Boo: Yeah. And , did it little light bulb go?

Paul: Yeah, little light bulb.

Boo: You're thinking , Hold on. Yeah. Hold 

Paul: Yeah. We couldn't grow it within Wales because. We had paper prescriptions, so you need to physically get a prescription so you could do it within your neighborhood, but you couldn't go 10 miles, 20 miles away to get prescriptions.

But I thought actually in England, this is 2016 EPS is coming to maturity. I talked to lots of my English friends that had. Moaned and groaned about the, the growing pains of getting it and starting it up. And I was, and I, at the time, I was saying, I better to have 2D barcodes, but by 2016 everyone was saying, yeah, it's all, it's starting to work.

So I thought, right. If I've got something that people like pouch dispensing, if I can set up a pharmacy in England and access the billion prescriptions Yeah. That are dispensed in England every year and offer my pouching service, maybe I'll be onto something. So that's what we did. We bought a DSP in Bristol.

As close as we could be to Wales. Yeah. , set up.

Boo: You don't like leaving too far? We don't have, don't you don't, you don't wanna go too far though.

Paul: And there was, we were charged for getting back into Wales at that point as well. So, 

Boo: serves you right.

Paul: Yeah. so we set up this online, online pharmacy, .

It just exploded. We were just doing Facebook advertising, Google advertising. 

Boo: Was it direct to patient this or

Paul: direct to patient?

Boo: So, so 

this wasn't, this was a model for pharmacies to access, this was direct 

to patient.

Paul: Right. This was people seeing our, our, our adverts. Yeah. And going, I know I've got, I'm taking a lot of medication.

I know I've got a problem in remembering to take my medication. I didn't know  there was an answer, but this picture Yeah. Of this pouch. That's my answer. So people would sign up straight. Wait. We became the second busiest pharmacy within a number of months. pharmacy two were miles ahead, but we became number two within a few months.

Why Paul Left Pill Time for PMR Development

Boo: Okay. And then, why the exit? That sounds like it was a, a growing business. 

Paul: You would think so, but. It was all about the operation and the efficiencies. So we started off with one PMR. We maxed out on that because we've grown so fast. Yeah. I had too many users I had to go to back to ProScript which is what I was using.

I'd used for 16 years. , but we. But, but we didn't want any of the functionality with, within Proscript, we were a fast growing scaling company, so we built the software around it. So we built the software to integrate with the robots, to integrate with the Royal Mail to do, to do the dispatching. But we still needed lots of pharmacists.

We still needed lots of stuff. Yeah. We needed lots of stock. We didn't have any stock control, so we had to build all that, that, that stuff around it ourselves. Mm-hmm. And then you get to a situation we think. But we've only got Proscripts Connect to the spine. Yeah. If we connect to the spine, we can get rid of that.

Yeah. So in 2020 we decided to, that the opportunity of building a software, building our own PMR was a greater opportunity than than pill time. So I left pill time and focused on the, on the PMR and then what was. Different. What was like secret ingredient for us was that because we were in Wales without EPS, I could go back into Wales, develop the software without needing EPS integration.

So we rolled it out into Mayberry pharmacies. Yeah, we got it working really well. Ironed out any bugs and things like that. Got it. All the make it working it really fast. Then we. Got locked down, the development got locked down because we needed to go for EPS accreditation. And then you come out the other side and we hit the ground running because we'd already, we, by the time we locked down, we'd already be dispensed millions of prescriptions.

So where you see other systems where they come out to the market and there's a bug, you need to fix things. Once they've gone through EPS. We were, we were flying by the time we came out. 

Boo: Okay. That's great. and then Pharmacy X, so that's where you are, what a great name, Pharmacy X. Where did, where did that name come from? Sounds like the, it's like the TV channels I watch! with the X.

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Well, well, nothing, nothing really. It's just that we, you know, we wanted something that. That people would know what industry we're in. You know, you've got things like what's Centrica, what does, what do they do? Yeah. The supply, you know, so we just wanted put pharmacy there.

And like you said, probably if the X was, was the, was the thing.

Boo: So Pharmacy X just, you combine your two passions? Yeah.

Introducing Pharmacy X

Boo: Oh, we might have to snip that now. So. What's so good about Pharmacy X, Paul? Why, what, what, what, what makes you different from any of the other ones that are out there?

Paul: Basically it's been built by me. An experienced pharmacy operator. Yeah. You know, so it's not ca we're not created by, . Anybody else apart from somebody who's built the software to run their pharmacies and run them, run a group of multiple pharmacists, small, multiple, but still a multiple.

, knowing what I, what we know number today, so rather than the legacy systems where EPS was retrospectively fitted, robots rep, everything's retrospectively fitted 'cause they're 20 years old. What we did is say, well, we know what we need to do these days. The contract's changing. Yeah. It's gotta be all about services.

Nobody's gonna give us loads of money back into dispensing. So you've gotta make your dispensing efficient. So make sure you've got a very efficient dispensing process. , you've gotta free up your pharmacist from the dispensing process, so save your clinical checks. Mm-hmm. Try to reduce as many a ACT checks as you can.

And then if your pharmacist is in the consultation room, they need to be confident that everything's safe in the dispensary. So make sure that everything can only be labeled if you scan the. Scan the correct barcode. Now other systems will say, yeah, we scan the correct barcode. But if your barcode doesn't scan it, just escape and print it out and bypass it.

Well, we, you can't do that. Ours, there's ways that the, the, I won't go into all the details, but there's easy ways to, to add the barcodes and you choose which, what goes like, so we, we, the only system says you will not get a label out unless you scan the correct barcode. And then the massive thing is stock control and nobody else looks at stock control.

Mm. , whereas I know as a pharmacy owner, it's really important and I've reduced my stock levels by uh. 60, 70%. 

Boo: B So in terms of, in terms of stock control, this is a thing that I think not just groups, but like in pharmacies for donkeys years, have had a, a severe problem getting a handle on, mainly because, because the way the generic market is, it's a jble sale.

, you can get anything from anywhere, from any supplier, anything can come in, and then anything cannot come in as well. Mm-hmm. And it's a total mess. Mm-hmm. Now you're saying that your system has got a handle on that because? I'm dubious about any system ever saying that they've got a handle on it.

'cause I've never seen it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

Paul: P So, and we are the only system that does it, and the secret is D, m and D codes. Yeah. So it's a code, a drug code, yeah. Yeah. So it's a drug code is the same. Drug code is used by prescribing systems. It's used by pricing systems. So we use it in our PMR. Every other PMR uses PIP codes.

Yeah. So if you think then a PIP code, if you've got a product, the Teva product is a different PIP code than the Accord product, et cetera, et cetera, which means that every. Single brand is treated as a different product and then they try to force it into a family or wherever it, but of course then if you've got Atorvastatin Lipitol in that family, so then you've got, you worry go the, whereas we go, no, I don't care about whichever brand it is.

Let's look at the DM and D code, which just says the drug Atorvastatin 20 milligrams Pax size 28. That's, I don't care which brand comes in because like you said, it could come in from any different supplier with every, any different manufacturer. All I know is I just wanna dispense Atorvastatin, but I don't want to give out the expensive brand.

Or ordering an expensive brand. 

Boo: Okay. What about stuff like, uh, so you think you, you think your system is the best, right?

Paul: Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Boo: No Doubt your system is the best. What about, so right now what I found is, uh, because of this kind of new tech landscape, there's loads of loads. Pretty much startups doing loads of different things that are helpful within pharmacy, but you find that they're not, there's no interoperability between loads between the different systems.

Mm-hmm. Now there still isn't, and everyone's saying they've got open APIs. Everyone will plug in. You'll be able to do it. Where, where do you stand on something like this? Because no one knows what's gonna come tomorrow. And what we might, what we, as a contractor, as a pharmacy, you don't know what you're gonna need.

Yeah. But you need to be able to make sure you can integrate with your pmr. 'cause I don't wanna have to go to like seven, eight different systems

to, uh, run my 

business.

Paul: But to start off with, I think the PMRs should be doing more than. Then, so the legacy PRI can remember being in meetings years ago saying when you've had, people were presenting on delivery apps and, and analytics and all these other different apps and saying they shouldn't even exist.

They should have been within the pmr, but the PMRs didn't do it. They allowed these third parties to take, take control of those part, those part markets. So a lot of the stuff that we do, we control integrated CD registers. Some other systems you'd say you got into it. We make it really simple. You need to, you really need to come and see it.

See how, how, how easy it is. But then another thing is the NHS is still working on stuff. Yeah. One of the things is the NHS app, they try the NHS trying to encourage people to order through the NHS app. Mm-hmm. , one of the things that we need to be able to do is to tell the NHS when the prescription.

The NHS app when the prescription is ready for a patient. Mm-hmm. So then the patient that can come in and get the prescription all see it as part of the efficiencies. Well, if we are creating that which we've created, then that is your haven't got a lot of tech. That's the information that everybody needs.

Yeah. So we've already done it. So if, if you can read the information that we are gonna be sending to the NHS app, and you can put that into your delivery app, you can put it into your services. It's already there

Boo: so full interoperability. You believe. What about with all the different bits of like robots and vending machines that are out there and everything?

Integration & Interoperability with Other Systems

Boo: You guys are integrated with all these different

Paul: Yeah. All the robots use the same interface. The vending machines. Some of the vending machines have got their, their data cloud-based, which makes it easy for us. Yeah. 'cause we are cloud-based. Some of them are on premise, which makes it a little bit more difficult.

, but yeah, we deal with them all.

Boo: Alright. And how much, how much do you charge? 

Pricing: £700/Month with Price Match Guarantee

Boo: Let's get back down to the nitty gritty.

Paul: As I said, I'm a, I'm a pharmacist. I know where it's like, I don't wanna be, I'm be paying extra for this and for that. So, we just have one flat fee. So the flat fee is 700 pounds per month.

Boo: Oh, I like flat fee. 

Paul: Yeah. And it, and it's got, you know, where you know, where you know exactly where you are. You know, I'm paying less than that. Right. Yeah. So you're playing it less because your group, so we are saying 700 is, is where we start. Yeah. , if. Your group? Yes. We negotiate discounts and we can give you discounts and we'll match every, for like, for like, we'll match anybody, so nobody's not gonna come to pharmacy X over price.

We'll match any anybody's price on a like, for like basis.

Boo: Wow. Even price match?

Paul: Yeah.

Boo: I love this market. This market's getting better and better

Paul: and you know what, and if you don't like 

it, yeah, we, when you ask for,

Boo: can you send us to the Grand Prix or something like that as well?

Squeeze what we can out. 

Paul: Yeah. I'll come with you. The, yeah. , so, and, and, but because we, we know we we're the best. We know you're gonna love it. Yeah. We'll say we only want, you only want give us a 12 month commitment. So it's only a 12 month contract. Yeah. And do you know what? If you don't like it after six months, then fine.

Okay, great. Close.

Boo: So 

no tie in. £ 700 a month. Yeah, everything's negotiable. Depending on who you are. Well, yeah, everything's negotiable. Come see the system because you're convinced is the best system on the planet. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh,

Paul: best in the uk.

Boo: Best in the best in the uk. Oh, not on the planet. You're pegging back a bit 

Paul: That’s outside my scope.

I know what's in, what's available in the UK and I know we’re better. 

Boo: Okay, so,  there's no reason not to go to Pharmacy X.

Paul: Yeah, no. , you've gotta come and see it.

Boo: We, we've gotta come and see it. 

The Future of Pharmacy: Services Over Dispensing

Boo: Paul. You've been in this industry a while. Yeah. So if you had a crystal ball, which you don't have, but just for the, for the purposes of this podcast, you have a crystal ball, where do you see the pharmacy landscape in the next 2, 3, 5 years, whether it's dispensing or whether it's what? What do you see happening? 

Paul: You can see what's happening in the future in outside of England. So you see what Scotland is leading the way. Wales are a little bit behind Scotland, but ahead of Wales, and it's all around services.

Right, so the money's not gonna come back into dispensing. You've gotta be really efficient on your dispensing, your dispensing process. You've gotta be reducing your stock levels and managing your stock, and you've gotta be buying cleverly. You've gotta have a system that will give you all the information so you can buy the optim so that that's, but you've also then gotta take the pharmacist outta that dispensing flow.

I always say that the pharmacist only adds value to the dispensing process in two places at the very beginning doing clinical checks. Yeah. And at the end doing the. Spending time with the patients, everything else can be delegated or automated. Now, if you can then reduce down the number of clinical checks you need to do because your PMR co covers that or saves your clinical checks, mm-hmm.

It means that you can then focus on the end bit, which you're spending time with the patients, and hopefully spending time with the patients means you're then delivering services, both NHS and private services. And if you are doing that, if you can pivot your business to that, so your pharmacists are doing that, then.

The future is rosy. I've been in the business a long time, like you said, seen the good times, seen the bad times. Last year with that model was my best year ever. 

Boo: So Paul, loads of people are still on legacy systems that pretty much are not fit for purpose going into the future. We know that Everyone knows that everyone's gonna have to move off, right?

Paul: P Yeah. So if you're still on, and when I say legacy system, uh, we were with pros script that was at EISs is a very large provider, but it was made before. ETP, electronic prescriptions. It's not cloud-based. It was not made for the future. It's actually so antiquated compared to the processes nowadays, everyone's gonna have to move off at some point to a newer system.

Boo: Where do you stand with that? Why bother? With your system, why is it not better than why is anyone else's? Everyone else has got new systems that are, are, are good, right? So, so where, where do you stand with this? 

Paul: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Those legacy systems, 20 years old, everything's retrospectively fitted.

It, it's all, it doesn't work. They don't work. They've. I think it's probably too late for 'em to change. , they talk about bringing in things like s script chat. They, they can't do it. They, the way that they've built 20 years ago be based on pcos. They, they can't do it. It's not gonna work. No, it's not gonna, so you, so, so everybody's gotta be looking for a new PMR and the, the three in the market then are the, Titan and Apotec main pitch is, we are like ProScript but.

Modern. Okay. If you, if you like the Proscript things. Oh, we've got, we've got Apotec by the way, let me just clarify before anyone, , yeah, so, so that, and, and that's they're model. If you just wanna move into this, just have a cloud based version of Proscript. You've, you've got it with appetite, with Titan.

Titan was, came out in 2019. I went to see it in 2016, 2018, 2020. 2016 was Mayberry Pharmacy 2018 as Camry Lions 2020 with Pill Time. And it promised a lot. It looked, it was gonna be gonna be good, but even in 2020 it just wasn't, it wasn't really where, what it needed to do. Like no stock control, no, no.

Releasing the pharmacist properly. So. We, at the time, we, we had, we had pill time, so, and we were in the, the, we had the, we had the tech team behind us. We were able to say, do you know what? Nothing's out there that, that is what we need, so let's develop ourselves. So we decided to develop the entire new workflow.

I'd done a lot with lean principles. I'd gone to Cardiff Business School and did a diploma in Lean, where they say that if there's a, that you would just strip every. Part of waste out of a, of, of a workflow, make it as efficient as possible. So the tech team said to me, so right, you design the perfect workflow for a community pharmacy and we'll build a software around it, knowing what we know now, knowing you wanna free up the pharmacist so they can spend time on services, stock control, making everything safe and also being cloud-based.

Meaning if you've got a number of groups, you wanna see that what's going on in all your pharmacies in one go. And we can do that just on, on, on a screen. You can't do that with the, with the legacy systems where you've gotta dial in. With our system, you can see all your branches on a screen exactly where they are now.

Boo: Okay, in terms of, I mean, I'm a pharmacy contractor. Uh, if anyone else is, is looking for anything like this, all I turn around and say is check everyone out. We've got no affiliations. Everyone says that their system is the best. Paul is no different. So everyone I, what I normally say is check them all out, see which one's the best fit for your business.

Stock Control: The Missing Piece

Boo: There's gonna be ones that are more value for money. Value is whatever you think the value is. Yeah. Yeah. And certain ones, certain people, certain, don't check them all out, because now what I would say is, for us as a buyer, it's brilliant. It's a brilliant time to be because everyone's vying for our business.

Yeah. So it's, it's very, very, very rare do we. Uh, be in such a good position as a, a buyer because everyone's moving off of, off, off of legacy systems. Got, there's only so many of the ones on the newer platforms. Check them all out and get the best deal. Yeah. For you. That's what I'd recommend anyway.

Paul: And You’re Right.

And you've gotta look, but you have gotta look at the value as well. Yeah. So you want, like, I would, I would, what we say is, , one price. Everything's included all new. Things that come out. Dunno what, don't, I dunno what I dunno. But when things come out, it's out. Everything's included in the price. It never, it's never an add-on.

Yeah. The, apart from the, the, the, the monthly license fee, the only thing extra you pay for is a text. When you text in patients to say, to come in for your prescription, 2.7 per text. That's the only extra thing You can use your existing hardware, you can use a a a, a normal broadband. Like I use BT 39 pounds.

Yeah. , as long as you've got a fixed ip, that's all, that's all you need. So it's a cheap way to getting in. And like I said, if you've, when you, when you do price matches and you look at other people, we did a price match the other day. It was 20 lines on this, on the other companies got everything was extra, extra, extra.

No matter how many machines you want, whether it's 10, 15, 20 machines in your pharmacy, regardless of the number of items that you're doing, irrespective of anything, we'll even put it on your laptops. We've put on your manager's laptops, we'll put it on your head office. Laptops work from home because you can work from home, work from the office.

Yeah. And you can access everything from home. You can access it anything through a secure VPN put on your laptop. You can access it from McDonald's, you know, but everything is, is, is there for you. So do do the - compare like for like, and then if you come to us with saying, somebody's got this. We'll price match it.

Boo: There you go. Price match. And you can't beat that can you?

Paul: And you wanna break clause after six months. Not a problem. We are confident we are the best. That is.

Boo: That's quite an offering. Yeah. That's, it makes a change from back in the day when you'd be tied in for four years or something. 

Paul: Yeah. But yeah, exactly.

And the, and the sales process tends to be, have a chat with me or one of the team, have a look at our videos, have an online demo. Everyone says looks good, but I wanna see it in real life. Yeah. Go and see the people that are using it. Our salespeople. Are our users. We've spent zero on, on sales at the moment.

Hmm. We're. The fastest growing PMR company over the last year, the fastest growing PMR company by the numberof nbers, numberof people that are joined us with zero spend on marketing. Our salespeople are our users. 

Boo: Paul, you mentioned you had the best financial year ever. And I'll tell you one thing, I've been in pharmacy for a long time and I can definitely tell you.

Anywhere within the last 10 years have not been my best financial year ever. So do you want to just let me know what you've, what you've done there? Are you getting like, uh, have you just offshore everything? 

Paul: well, it's, we are a little bit in advance of, of yourselves in England because we're in Wales, so the contract is a little bit different.

Boo: Oh, you're more advanced, are you a Oh, right, okay.

Paul: Regards to services. Okay. You'll, you'll get 

there. So what, so what we were, what we were able to do is that you, you know, we all know the direction of travel. It's not gonna be money in, in the dispenser. So. We've made that really efficient and did, and we cut down a stock, you know,

Boo:  I think, I think although money, sorry to cut you off real quick, Paul.

You know, I think a lot of people are heading towards services. Which is good, and I know you, you're gonna tell me how it is the best financial you ever, but I think, you know, like when you're still, your, your cost to run the business or your turnover is still like 70% of it is drugs. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It makes such a big difference, a margin on there.

If, if you, if you, if you knocked a little bit off there, like all the services in the world do not. Do not help. Yeah. Pull that up. Yeah. So, yeah, 

so go on. As you were mentioning about your,

Paul: but what, what, but what do most people do? Most people have got a PMR where you don't know where your stock is, that you can, or your, your dispensers, your managers can order wherever they want.

And then you asked for different reports from your cascade system to say, can you tell me if my manager's over ordered? Well, with our system, it controls the stock, so it only orders stock if you drop below the minim. That I set or we've got an outstanding prescription for it. So we've, we've always had optimum stock levels.

Yeah. We only order what we need so there's some dramatic, all of a sudden you can have just in time ordering, ordering system for the expensive lines. 'cause why have you got stock on your shelves that you can, for the expensive lines that can only, maybe, only can come from alliance. Yeah. You're gonna get twice daily delivery.

You don't get any discount for buying it in bulk, but you'll have. Four pounds worth of FGA used to be on the shelf. , why is that? That's 1% of your stock on one line. It's crazy when really you don't need to do it, but you keep, everybody else keeps that sort of stock levels because you don't control your stock.

Once you start controlling your stock and you know what's there and you know what you need to order, you stock level comes down. We, we've done surveys for people that have come out to Pharmacy X way in the first four weeks, their stock levels have reduced by 54% and of the stock that's left 25% of it wasn't touched over that, that 28 days because nobody knows what they're doing with the stock.

So, like you said, it's the biggest thing that you spend on, but yet nobody's looking at it. It's really important to look at. So sort out your yeah dis efficient dispensing process, but you've gotta look after your stock. And pharmacy X is the only system that looks after the stock. And then once you're doing that, and your pharmacists are not spending time looking at that, not editing orders and things, so because the system takes care of it, and then you can focus on services.

Paul's Best Year Ever: The Wales Advantage

Boo: So your best year ever 

was through a higher amount of service level income.

Paul: Yeah. So we reduced our stock levels, we improved our margins on the, on the dispensing,  because the system takes care of it. And then we trained up our pharmacists. So all in all, I got seven pharmacies. I got seven ips. Every branch has got an IP in there.

Mm-hmm. Which in Wales, and this is why I said that we are more advanced. They've, they've sort of, , pp funded the, the, , the ips to encourage us to get IPS going. Okay. So I think I'm, I dunno of any other group.

Boo: What, 

what's the, what's the funding? What's this pp funding, what do you mean?

Paul: In the first year, once, if you, if, well, they, they help fund the pharmacist to become ips.

Yeah. Once they are ips. Yeah. And if the pharmacy starts providing IP consultations, as long as you do one consultation a month. Yeah. For 12 months, you get £ 40,000.

Boo: Okay, so now I understand how you've had the best year ever. So I think what you're trying to suggest is everyone pick up their pharmacy and move it to Wales.

Paul: I think that's probably the best way. Or make an offer. Yeah. 

Boo: Wow. Uh, but that, okay, now, uh, I, I've,

Paul: but what, but what that, what that does then is that you've got. You've got your nh, you've got your NHS funding for your ip. Yeah. But then that comes with, then we've got the common ailments with, so you can earn a decent amount of money for the common ailments.

Yeah. But then you've got your ips that. That could then be doing your weight management, your travel clinics, and that's where the money is. Then when private and when you start talking,

Boo: all my taxes are going to your pocket. All my taxes are going to you, Paul. I'm not, I'm trying to, I'm gonna end up doing a side hustle because I don't have enough money to be able to, to have Wow.

But anyway. No, it's good on you. Yeah, 

Paul: P so it, it, it's getting so basically, but it's. It's not coming as a surprise, you know, that further down the line this year, next year, all the pre regs are gonna come out as prescribers. Yeah. So everybody really needs to be trained up as a prescriber so that they can compete in this, in this new world, you've gotta be taken away from the dispensing process and be able to focus on, on the services.

And yes, Wales has got. An advantage because they've encouraged me to train my pharmacist to, to get that money. But it's the improving profitability isn't just about that. It's because now we're also doing the weight management, the other private services, as well as the whole range of NHS services.

Make Pharmacy Great Again Revolution

Boo: So Paul, you've, you've come at a very opportune time. I have decided to, uh, start a revolution.

Paul: Yeah. Okay, good.

Boo: And you are my first appointee. Yeah.

Paul: Thank you.

Boo: So now I've decided, look, make pharmacy great again. It's a bit like MAGA. Yeah, but MPGA. Yeah, MPGA. Yeah. So. 

Boo: Would you join my revolution , Paul?

Paul: Yes, definitely. Yeah.

Boo: There's a, there's a, there's a cap for you there.

Yeah. Make pharmacy great again. See, I've got this, I've got an idea as well. Yeah. Do you wanna hear my idea?

Paul: Yeah. See what's your idea?

Boo: My idea. So I think pharmacies, it's hard. Yeah. I think it's gonna be hard over the next few, few years. Yeah. And like I've got, I've got kids, my 16-year-old, they always turn around.

And with these kids nowadays, they're always talking about the side hustle. 

And it's never about your main job now. Yeah. Because they tell me you don't make money in your main job. You make money in your side hustle. And I thought, you know what I need? I need a side hustle. Yeah. So I thought, if I need a side hustle, what can it be?

Then I thought, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start selling merch. Right? Yeah, yeah. But merch, so I'm gonna become a millionaire. Yeah. Through selling. Make pharmacy great again Merch

Paul: Great.

Boo: Yeah. Yeah. But obviously guests get it free.

That's good. So thank you for joining my, uh, my, the revolution even.

Paul: Thank you for inviting me.

Boo: Yeah. Join the revolution. 

Quick Fire Questions & Wrap Up

Boo: I've got some quick fire. I've got some quick fire questions for you. Yeah. Okay, now fire away. You've seen the quick fire question.

Stick with main job or side hustle?

Paul: Keep the main thing the main thing.

Boo: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, rugby or football. And why?

Paul: Rugby 'cause I'm Welsh. It's my passion. 

Boo: Yeah. You know, I, I, I dunno why I asked these questions. It is like, I know it, it's easy. Yeah. Do you watch football even?

Paul: Yeah.

Boo: Okay. Who? 

Paul: Celtic City, unfortunately. 

Boo: Don't worry, it's tough. Okay, this one I'm gonna answer for you.

Paul: Okay.

Boo: 'Cause I can tell, I was gonna say Lambo or Tesla. Yeah, but you look like a Lamborghini driver. I can tell straight away. I can imagine. Top down Lamborghini.

Paul: All the way with a tech. I go with tech. Tesla every time.

Boo: Ah, you sure?

Paul: Yeah. I got two!

Boo: I went to town with the merch. Honestly, I thought if there's, I'm not making money in pharmacy, so why not?

Go with my side hustle full on. So I've gone with full merch. Full branding. Look at that. Make pharmacy great again. What do you think? 

Paul: Yeah, 

Boo: You reckon it'll work?

Paul: Dunno whether I'd wear it down the street, but yes. 

Boo: What are you talking about? This is, this is unique. This is like, there's only so many pieces of this one.

I mean, it's designed by Fruit of the Loom or something, but don't worry about that quality. This is, it is proper quality. So let me present you with some merch here. Great. I mean. This is gonna be on the website later, so you can buy this. Yeah. And I'm gonna make my 50 p or a pound or whatever I make from this.

Uh, soon enough. Limited edition. Limited edition. That's it. Yeah. Marvelous. I, I dunno what size it is. It looks like your size. Yeah, it looks big enough. I've even Thank you very much. We've got tote bags as well. 

Paul: Brilliant. And can I keep the cup?

Boo: You could keep a cup as well. We'll give you a full fresh cup.

Paul: Thank you very much.

Boo: Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna give you full, fresh, don't you worry about it. Our guests are treated well. In pharmacy planet. Look at that. That's a good talk about,

Paul: here's an interesting fact for you.  You said about the, the textiles. My parents had a, a shop selling clothes Back in the day, my first, first side hustle when I, I was in school was selling jumpers and jeans to people in school.

And we used to go on a weekend to Tarek's appearance in Bristol and buy from Tarek. So

Boo: Tarek from?

Paul: Who owns Titan. 

Boo: Oh wow.

Paul: So about that. So I would've been-

Boo: Who is a competitor? Right?

Paul: Who is a competitor.

Boo: Oh, right.

Paul: So back in the day when I was a maybe six or seven, I would've been going to Tarek's parent's warehouse, buy inside. You know what I, so we go back a long way. 

Boo: You know what I would really like? Yeah. You know, like for someone like me, there's so much, like there's so many PMR providers right now and they're all hustling for the same business. Yeah. I would like to chuck everyone in and there'd just be a cage match.

Whoever's last man standing, that's whoever wins. That'd be the best way. And I think, I think, I think we can probably make that happen. Do some, do some 

promotion. Get it. What do you think? Well, I, I would, would you be up for that?

Paul: Our, our head of tech, Matt is an ice hockey player. Yeah. So stick everybody on the ice and out throwing your gloves off.

Boo: Well, thank you so much Paul.

Paul: Thank you.

Boo: It's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming to Pharmacy Planet and I think that's a wrap. 

Paul: Great. Thank you very much.