REGIONAL NETWORKING MEETING – HILTON LONDON ELSTREE – 13th MAY 2024
The turnout was great for our most recent regional networking meeting which took place last week at the DoubleTree by Hilton London Elstree with about 40 guests in attendance.
Following a delicious dinner our guests were treated to presentations from a range of speakers and first up was Paul Rees MBE, CEO of the National Pharmacy Association. He and his Director of External and Corporate Affairs Gareth Jones highlighted the challenges facing the sector and talked about the “Save our Pharmacies” campaign and the day of action that is planned for this Thursday 20th June. You can find out more here.
Shilpa Shah is Chief Executive Officer at North East London LPC. She offered some incredibly useful advice to our independent pharmacy customers about how they can maximise their pharmacy services whether that is through the use of Pharmacy First, Smoking cessation services, locally commissioned services such as sexual health etc or via private services. Shilpa talked about the need for independent pharmacies to invest essential time in planning and reviewing to see where any gaps might be in their performance and she stressed the need for pharmacies to harness the power of social media to support their marketing efforts.
Next up was Adele Curran, COO of Real World Analytics Pharmacy who shared information on how data can improve efficiency and performance by keeping Eyes on the Prize, ie the value of return from using data well. She showed some dashboard layouts and demonstrated how Weekly Operational Reporting can look using the RWA service offering. It’s also possible to use this for year on year comparison and benchmarking. Sigma is working with RWA to finalise a solution for Sigma customers and there will be further information available on this soon.
Raj Haria rounded out the event with a look at Sigma Partnerships with Direct Customers, Buying Groups and Regional Chains. He was also keen to remind our guests that we have a fully staffed customer service function who are there to help with any queries between 8.30am and 7.30pm.
Sigma has always offered its customers best practice advice and support in this type of forum which is what makes us stand apart from our competitors. We will continue to organise similar events as they allow our customers to air their views and opinions, as they always do so enthusiastically when we meet up, and we are grateful to everyone who came along to join us
