Page 28 - P4304.1-V93_PS-Magazine-January 2024 -

Is your glass half

full or half empty?

By Caroline Pond.

I think we focus far too often on the negatives in our dispensary businesses rather than
celebrating all the positives and I’m not quite sure why. After all you have a choice – you can
continue running the dispensary or not. This a choice a prescribing-only practice does not
have access to so maybe we are the lucky ones?
The dispensary should be regarded as a positive addition to any practice, for the partnership
and the patients. If you as the management team can see no benefit to having the
dispensary, and there are other chemist facilities close by to provide prescription services to
your patients then I would ask myself why to keep going.
But, on the other hand, there are many partnerships who would give their eye teeth to have a
bolted-on business with a relatively captive audience of patients requiring their services. So
why all the moans?
I think it’s about changing our attitude and stopping looking backwards to ‘how it used to be’
but rather looking forward with open eyes and a quest to make the most of what you have.
With that in mind, I would like to help you focus on the positive aspects of a being a
dispensing doctor practice.
Your dispensary, if run well, allows the practice to
generate extra income which, should the partnership
agree, can be ploughed back into the practice to
make improvements to services or infrastructure;
improvements which would not normally be easily
funded. Many of you may have extra clinical hours or
equipment which is being paid for by this extra revenue
stream. Maybe we need to remind ourselves of this fact.

28 PS Magazine | Is your glass half full or half empty? Buy direct online at PSUK.co.uk

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