Journal of Medicines Optimisation - Mar 2022

Journal of Medicines Optimisation • Volume 8 • Issue 1 • March 2022 30 How would you describe your leadership style? In terms of my leadership style, I like to use a mix of ‘servant leadership’ which is enabling individuals to grow and develop, and ‘transformational leadership’ wherewe are trying to evolve the organisation to enable some of the goals such as the NHS Long Term Plan or the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework. In my commercial leadership role my ambition is to develop a new collaborative way of working both internally and externally that supports delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan, a successful UK growth business and also creates a great place to work. My responsibility is therefore to develop a deeper understanding of how Viatris and our products and services can best serve our customers, our patients and our communities. I use two phrases internally quite a lot: “Everybody is a leader in our organisation”. With that comes responsibility, but also the opportunity to influence things in a positive way. “It's the people in our business, not the products that make the difference”. I feel that my responsibility is to create the conditions where people can come to work and bring their best self to tryandcreateabetter outcome forpatients in theUK. My ultimate goal is to evolve our traditional product centric business to a more customer centric, data driven healthcare business that can more effectively support the current and evolving healthcare needs of NHS systems to deliver prevention, population health improvement and reduce health inequalities. In summary, I have a broad responsibility in my commercial leadership role that is centred around delivery of our Viatris Healthcare Mission – “healthcare not as it is, but how it should be” via Access, Leadership and Partnership. Access – Providing high quality medicines regardless of geography or circumstance Leadership – Advancing sustainable operations and innovative solutions to patient health Partnership – Leveraging our collective expertise to connect people to products and services. How does Viatris currently view the significance of pharmacy within the UK? In Viatris, we see pharmacy as the front door to the NHS. We are setting out to advocate for and enable pharmacy to move beyond the dispensing of medicines to the provision of an ever expanding range of clinical services to improve community health and wellbeing. We see pharmacy at the centre of this transformation plan and think that pharmacy is key to population health improvement, both in treatment and prevention. We talked about providing access to high quality medicines and we believe that pharmacy is the place where this can really happen. The numbers and statistics prove this. There is no part of the NHS system that sees more patients every day than pharmacy, so the potential to influence patient health and health outcomes is there. Pharmacy is the only place in the NHS where you can see a pharmacist without going through a receptionist - there are no barriers to someone engaging with a pharmacist. It is very important to realise, and maybe build on what this sector did through the Covid pandemic in terms of being open, being available and continuing to care for the patients. As the experts in medicines, supported by progressive government medicine policy and strategy, pharmacy is increasingly important to the integrated healthcare system in ensuring safe, effective and high quality healthcare provision using medicines that put patient’s needs first. Through structured medication reviews, non-medical prescribing capability and clinical service delivery, pharmacists are taking an ever-increasing role within collaborative multi- disciplinary teams across sectors to support the delivery of high quality care provision in the NHS. Within the various sectors of pharmacy in primary and secondary care, can you look ahead to give us a view on how you see the future in the delivery of patient care via pharmacy? Firstly, we want to enable the NHS Long Term Plan and support the appropriate shifting of care from A&E and from secondary care into pharmacy where it can