YPG pharmacy opens

In 2001, the Young Pharmacists' Group initiated the idea of opening up its very own pharmacy. This pharmacy, unlike any other in the UK, was to be run primarily as an experimental practice laboratory that would enable new models of practice to be developed.

01-DEC-08

Because this pharmacy was to be closely linked to schools of pharmacy, it would be able to gather valuable data and an evidence base which could be used subsequently to support pharmacy’s
negotiations with the government on new role development. This pharmacy could also be used as an under/postgraduate learning facility by schools of pharmacy nationally.

The YPG pharmacy would run on a not-for-profit ‘social enterprise’ basis, where any proceeds would be ploughed back into the project for the benefit of further practice development.

For many reasons, it was always hoped that this pharmacy would deliver huge benefits for pharmacy practice in the UK. While the hopes for this project were great, the YPG, a voluntary organisation, had no funds to deploy these ideas.

However, six years later, and after much behind-the-scenes effort, more than £250,000 had been raised, and the YPG project has secured an LPS contract in Dudley, West Midlands. Finally, the YPG
pharmacy opened in September 2008.

It may surprise many PDA members to learn that the PDA is one of the supporters of this project – despite it being a ‘bricks and mortar’ pharmacy. Indeed, over the past seven years, PDA Chairman, Mark Koziol, has played a signifcant role in taking this idea from vision to reality. The reason for the PDA’s support, is that this pharmacy can now be of signifcant strategic signifcance because it can be used (among other things), to develop new models of practice, including those that also beneft the individual pharmacist contractor model.

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