We recently surveyed 350 UK pharmacies on home delivery and these are the results:
Recent CitySprint Health research reveals that more than three-quarters of pharmacies (rising to 91% for independent pharmacies) now offer home deliveries. This, coupled with a huge 84% of pharmacists reporting an increased demand for the home delivery of medication in the last year, is putting growing pressure on pharmacists to manage deliveries as well as patient care.
On average pharmacy staff are spending 11 hours a week managing deliveries and in a third of cases, it’s the pharmacist themselves rather than other on-site staff, who are forced to spend time on logistics management. While pharmacies recognise the importance of transparency and security as part of a delivery service, pharmacies are relying on in-house staff and potentially untrained third parties to provide it; only 63% of pharmacies offer specific training to people delivering medicines.
Some other key findings from our research include:
- 55% of pharmacists are worried about the impact of Amazon and other online pharmacy models on their business
- Well over half (57%) of pharmacists were unclear about legislation surrounding the delivery of medicines to patients’ home, or aren’t aware of whether there is legislation at all
- For those pharmacies that don’t yet offer a pharmacy to home delivery service, 45% said the reason was because they were worried that the cost to the business would be too high
- Shockingly 6% of pharmacies rely on taxis or local minicabs to make their deliveries
Darren Taylor, Chief Development Officer, commented on the findings: “Pharmacies are under unprecedented funding and regulatory pressures – and the growing demand for home delivery can be an increasing drain on resources if not managed effectively. Although pharmacists should have an overview of home delivery services, managing all aspects of the offering is not sustainable for expert staff members that could be adding value elsewhere in the business.”
“It’s also evident from our research that the legal obligations around pharmacy-to-home deliveries are far from clear cut for pharmacists. It is vital the security of the medicine supply chain extends to home delivery and, as this responsibility remains with the pharmacist, we are calling on the General Pharmacy Council to provide clearer guidance in this area.”
CitySprint Health has 25 years of experience serving the hospital and pharmaceutical sectors, and is set to make 150,000 Pharmacy to home deliveries this year. Our Pharmacy to home delivery service is designed to help pharmacies improve the efficiency and security of patient medication deliveries. It is cost-effective, trackable and flexible.
Should you wish to learn more about our range of healthcare services, please get in touch below and one of our specialist team members will be in touch shortly.
Or try our
efficiency calculator here to see how much your pharmacy deliveries are costing you at the moment
About the research:
This research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of CitySprint Health; 350 UK pharmacists were interviewed, working across clinical pharmacies, independent pharmacies and chains of pharmacies. Fieldwork was conducted in June 2017.