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It’s Showtime! Gourlay, Field and Kirit Patel lead speaker line-up
More than 6,000 pharmacy professionals are expected to converge on the NEC on October 9th and 10th for the largest ever Pharmacy Show.
A record number of exhibitors – more than 300 companies taking up 10,000sqm of exhibition space – will be ready to greet hospital and community pharmacy delegates, together with six conference streams, a host of special events and more than 65 hours of business and clinical CPD education delivered by a world-class faculty of more than 60 speakers.
Boots’ boss Alex Gourlay is one of several industry leaders who will address delegates at the C+D Keynote Conference at this year’s Pharmacy Show.
Gourlay is acknowledged by retail analysts as the unsung hero of health and beauty giant Boots. While Alliance Boots executive chairman Stefano Pessina is the company’s face, Gourlay can be credited with grasping the opportunities private ownership has given the chain, and breaking new ground.
Gourlay, who is now Chief Executive of Alliance Boots Health and Beauty division is a company ‘lifer’ and is credited with the dramatic rise of Boots’ sales and has driven the rebranding of more than 1,000 Alliance pharmacies into the ‘Your Local Boots Pharmacy’ fascia.
He is credited with improving customer service in its stores by re-energising and motivating staff. Gourlay also overhauled the entire Boots supply chain operation, resulting in a state-of-the-art warehouse at its Nottingham HQ.
One of pharmacy’s most celebrated and respected entrepreneurs, Day Lewis chairman and founder Kirit Patel MBE will give a frank assessment of Lansley’s NHS reforms and the opportunities and threats to pharmacy business owners. Patel will also focus on the future of pharmacy in his 45-minute presentation in the Pharmacy Business Accelerator programme.
Other key speakers include Professor Stephen Field and Ash Soni, who represented the views of pharmacy in the recent ‘listening exercise’ conducted by the NHS Future Forum over Lansley’s controversial healthcare reforms. Meanwhile pharmacy tsar and National Clinical Director Jonathan Mason will deliver two lectures.
Former GB Olympic athlete and popular motivational speaker Kriss Akabussi, and a trio of 2011 C+D Award winners Sudhir Sehrawat, Jignesh Patel and Susanne Yousseff are all presenting at this year’s conference.
The New Medicine Service will be just nine days old when the Pharmacy Show opens its doors and there will be a number of special sessions dedicated to the NMS in the Patient Services Programme from National Clinical Director Jonathan Mason, PSNC’s Alistair Buxton and Gary Warner and the National Pharmacy Association’s Leyla Hannbeck.
Two main negotiators of the pharmacy contract – Pharmaceutical Negotiating Services Committee(PSNC) Chief Executive Sue Sharpe and the NHS Employers organisation lead negotiator Felicity Cox – will also be delivering important presentations on the contract negotiations and the opportunities for pharmacy that comes with it in the C+D Keynote Conference.
Chemist & Druggist magazine are presenting a unique conference session in the C+D Keynote Conference – a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style format in which several industry luminaries including Company Chemists’ Association and Pharmacy Voice chief Rob Darracott, Independent Pharmacy Federation chairman Fin McCaul, Pharmacists’ Defence Association chair Mark Koziol, and Hemant Patel, North East London LPC secretary, will pitch their ideas for a new pharmacy contract.
The new Clinical Forum is expected to attract hospital and community pharmacists and features some of the UK’s top clinical pharmacists who will present on a number of key disease areas including oncology, diabetes and renal disease, cardiology and anticoagulation, mental health, HIV and Hep C.
The Pharmacy Show this year plays host a number of special industry events held in the Piazza Suites and include special sessions and meetings including a series of ‘drop-in’ contractor meetings hosted by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee; a special debate on remote supervision led by the Pharmacists’ Defence Association; a breakfast forum on financing new pharmacy businesses, hosted by AAH Pharmaceuticals; a special session on service commissioning hosted by the Independent Pharmacy Federation. There will also be a special forum for technicians hosted by the Association of Pharmacy Technicians and the NPA will present a session for pre-reg pharmacists.
The British Pharmaceutical Students Association pre-reg conference, sponsored by the PDA, will once again take place at the Pharmacy Show this year.
Pharmacy Show director Matthew Butler commented: “The show has grown exponentially this year and quality of the education is the best we’ve ever offered delegates. We’ve had tremendous support from industry and from pharmacy representative groups which enables us to continue to provide a world-class CPD education to both community and hospital pharmacists for free.”
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