Healthcare
First
Our people are key to everything we do - no where more so than in stores.
Very early on I decided that while making stores look dramatically different would be a long and slow process, we could achieve a big impression on customers by changing the way all our people were dressed. This was one of the key issues raised by our store people when I joined the business and we have now completed the roll out of new uniforms to all stores. The feedback from customers and our people is great.
We know our key role is providing great professional care and advice. Our pharmacists and healthcare specialists are at the heart of this. 2,000 of our pharmacists are currently undertaking training to carry out Medicine Usage Reviews. We have trained 150 colleagues as Accuracy Checking Technicians with 250 more in training. ACTs free up pharmacist time for customer care. We have also retrained over 300 general assistants to provide more specialist healthcare advice.
We also continued to recruit more pharmacists than anyone else and over the last year retained three quarter of those who joined us. This is a significant improvement on previous years and reflects our commitment to clinical excellence.
During the half year we also launched our new advertising, based on the expertise we have in the organisation and building on the trust that it creates in our customers.
