In her latest blog our marketing director, Stephanie Yapp, provides the low-down on a month of
many highs for the team, our customers and the pharmacy sector…
All months at Cegedim Rx move quickly, but last month definitely felt like fast forward.
And with April marking Andy Gent’s first full month back in the business, it’s probably no surprise things have felt particularly fast paced. Maybe that’s the petrolhead influence! From a marketing and events perspective especially, Andy’s been straight back in the driving seat, so a personal thanks from me there too. Welcome back, Andy.
Our quarterly town hall brought the team together at head office. Not a reset and not a pause. More an opportunity to reflect on a strong Q1, recharge, and move into the next stage with real focus together.
There was a great energy in the room. Clear direction, honest conversations, and a shared
understanding of what we’re building towards as a business for the benefit of our customers and pharmacy across the UK.
As always, great to welcome Tristan, who shared a group update and reinforced the strength behind what we’re building as part of the wider Cegedim Group.
One of the best parts of the day was taking the time to recognise individuals across the business for forward thinking, innovation, collaboration, and the kind of initiative that doesn’t always get called out day to day.
There was a long list of nominees in April. People quietly raising the bar, helping move things
forward behind the scenes, and making a genuine difference to customers and colleagues alike. Brilliant to see that recognised properly.
There was also a lot of discussion around AI. Not in a theoretical sense, but in terms of the genuinely impressive work already happening across the business every day, work that can often go unseen because teams simply get on with it.
And for me, that’s exactly why moments like this matter. It’s really encouraging to see that work
brought to the forefront and shared more widely across the business, because there’s a huge
amount of talent, creativity, and forward thinking happening across teams right now.
We’ve spent a lot of time with customers across Scotland since the beginning of this year, with a renewed focus on discovery.
Not a one-off exercise. And definitely not a tick box.
We’re really lucky to have such engaged customers who are willing to open their doors, share their time, and speak honestly about what pharmacy looks like for them right now. What’s working well.
What’s becoming more challenging. And where technology, communication, and better workflows can genuinely help future-proof their business.
Those conversations are hugely appreciated and already shaping valuable thinking internally. And of course, it’s only the beginning.
From a marketing perspective, those conversations matter more than ever.
Pharmacy continues to evolve quickly, particularly around private services and commercial growth. And one of the biggest themes coming through consistently is awareness. Not just offering services, but helping pharmacies think differently about how they communicate them to patients and communities.
That’s something our marketing team is spending a lot of time focused on right now. How we can help pharmacies not only deliver more, but confidently promote their offering and grow their opportunity within the market.
April also gave us the opportunity to celebrate the sector in Scotland at the Scottish Pharmacy
Awards. A genuinely inspiring evening celebrating the very best of community pharmacy.
It was great catching up with familiar faces across the industry, including Lizzie Hagan, Craig
Murdoch, Vinny Bilon, Nana Ofori-Atta, Matt Barclay and many more. And of course, a big shout out to Richard Stephenson, Amy, and the wider team for a fantastic evening.
And with Pharmacy Forum 2026 just around the corner later this month, we’re looking forward to continuing many of those conversations, seeing some familiar faces again, and starting plenty of new conversations too. It’ll also be my first-time attending Pharmacy Forum personally, which I’m really looking forward to.
April also marked our first appearance at the IPA Members Conference as a proud Gold Partner. There were lots of conversations, plenty of interest, especially around CRx Services, and a real sense that pharmacies are actively looking at how they evolve what they offer over the next few years.
Earlier in the month, Tracey Robertson also attended the Pharmacy Business Conference alongside an incredibly strong speaker line-up, including our own customer, Reena Barai.
And honestly, these events really do matter.
We’re all busy. Everyone is balancing operational pressures, commercial priorities, and the pace of change within pharmacy. But stepping outside of our respective businesses and spending quality time together is incredibly valuable.
Not just because of the speaker sessions, although those are important, but because of the
conversations happening around them. The shared experiences. The exchanging of ideas. The
opportunity to broaden conversations, learn from each other, challenge thinking, and explore new ways of working together.
Quite often, the real lightbulb moments happen in the conversations between sessions.
This month we also launched our first edition of the CRx Journal at the IPA Members Conference.
Part broadsheet, part conversation starter, it was something we created not only to reflect the
conversations happening across pharmacy right now, but also to feature and celebrate our
customers and the incredible work happening across the sector every day.
From connected pharmacy and clinical services through to marketing, awareness, operational
pressures, and sector collaboration, the response to the first edition was genuinely brilliant.
There’s something quite nice about slowing things down occasionally too. In a world of constant notifications, emails, and scrolling, handing someone a physical paper and hearing
“I’ve actually sat and read this cover to cover” felt pretty special.
And for anyone who didn’t manage to pick up a copy in Coventry, we’ll be making the first edition downloadable very soon.
If April showed us anything, it’s that pace matters, but direction matters more.
What we’re hearing through customer conversations, discovery work, and our time out in the sector is directly shaping what comes next. And from a marketing perspective, from my perspective, that’s where things get really interesting.
At Cegedim Rx, we’ve spoken a lot over the last 18 months about collaboration over competition, and that still feels like a strong and important theme across community pharmacy. There’s a real sense that everybody succeeds together, particularly when it comes to improving community health outcomes.
At the same time, there’s also a noticeable shift happening in how pharmacies are thinking about growth, visibility, and patient engagement, particularly as private services continue to evolve and present significant commercial opportunity.
The challenge for many pharmacies isn’t capability. Pharmacists know their audience and
communities better than anyone. The challenge is often how to turn that knowledge into
communication strategies that increase awareness, drive engagement, and help patients better understand what’s available locally and why it matters.
And that’s a huge opportunity for the sector.
It’s also something we’re really excited to support, not only through better technology, stronger
communication tools, and more connected ways of working, but through a much more consultative approach too.
Whether that’s helping pharmacies think about marketing campaigns, communication planning, awareness activity around new services, or simply how they position and promote what they already offer, those are conversations we’re increasingly having every day.
And honestly, that’s exciting.
Because it reflects something we’ve believed for a long time. We want to partner with pharmacy businesses, not simply act as a provider or supplier to them.
More to come on that very soon