This year’s Australian Patients Association’s Most Outstanding Community Pharmacist award has gone to NSW community pharmacist Josh Lee.
Mr Lee is Pharmacist in Charge at Mountview Pharmacy in Armidale, part of the Life Pharmacy Group.
The award recognises the increasingly important contribution of community pharmacists in helping improve patient health outcomes.
Mr Lee said the award came as a big surprise although some patients had said they’d nominated him for something, he had no idea what it was.
“Are you kidding me? Don’t nominate me for an award. But they said they had already nominated me,” he said.
“It's as much a win for the team as it is for myself since I mostly just take all the credit for all the hard work that the pharmacy assistants do.
“The award is great and all but what it really means is that the patients are happy which is what's really important.
“I guess my approach to my patients is that I take my conversations to their level, and I talk with them, not at them. I try my best to foster understanding both ways.
“I became a pharmacist in 2016 and I remember well the times when I didn’t know anything about
medicines and so I understand where my patients are coming from.
“My aim is to help people understand about their medications and if they know why they are taking certain medications, they are more likely to take them correctly and obtain better health outcomes.
“I try to simplify the message, talk things through and ensure compliance with their medicine regimens.”
APA Chief Executive Stephen Mason said the award was initiated after feedback from its members and supporters.
This feedback led to the creation of the award to recognise the role community pharmacists play in educating patients about medication use, providing basic health checks and ensuring patient continuity of care, especially for the elderly and chronically ill.
The APA recognised that a broadening of services that community pharmacists provide not only suits many patients who are time poor, it also takes pressure off over worked GPs and potentially save the health system millions of dollars a year given many visits to GPs are for often basic health checks or repeat prescriptions for medications.
As a result, the APA decided it was important to highlight and recognise pharmacists who are providing a benchmark of care and service that patients and the community expect.
