Luke Bolton

In our latest instalment of Meet the Team we talk to Luke Bolton, product manager, as he approaches the final stretch of a ‘marathon’ project to make the lives of pharmacists easier during vaccination season this autumn…

Q. When did you join Cegedim Rx?

A. In 2017, first working within the customer service team and then being asked to join the product team as a business analyst and now as a product manager for our clinical services platform, Pharmacy Services.

Q. What does a product manager do?

A. You wear many hats. But I think that’s standard for Cegedim Rx. Everyone gets stuck in. I work closely with customers to understand how we can evolve our Pharmacy Services platform. How can we save them time, simplify complex processes, help provide better care to more patients, help them make more money. With this, I then work with the development teams to create the technology, and with sales and marketing to bring it to life.

Q. When you tell people what you do for a living, what most surprises them?

A. Until Pharmacy First was launched it was probably just how much community pharmacy can offer patients. From vaccinations, clinical services, NHS and private care. Most people just thought it was where they picked up their prescription or some cough medicine.

But I think now what really surprises people is just how tough it is for pharmacies to survive. Most people don’t consider a pharmacy to be a business – maybe because of the amount of NHS care they provide – but that’s exactly what they are. They need to make money to keep the service going.

When I explain that, they understand why the systems Cegedim Rx creates are so important.

Q. You mentioned pharmacies delivering vaccinations, you’re working on a project connected to that at the moment aren’t you?

A. We’re in the final stages of NHS assurance so we can roll out a new workflow for flu and covid vaccinations ahead of the autumn season. It’s been a marathon project to be involved in – I don’t think I’ve thought about much else for months now – but we’re coming towards the finish line.

What it will mean for customers is they’ll be able to record flu and covid vaccinations far more easily through Pharmacy Services. We’ve made the workflow intuitive, pharmacists can record dual vaccinations across all devices – desktop, tablet and smartphone. And longer term, there’s potential to extend this to include other NHS vaccinations such as RSV and shingles.

It goes back to that focus on making pharmacists’ lives easier. During vaccination seasons patient numbers increase massively. The systems used need to make juggling this high patient demand as simple and painless as possible.