New storytelling initiative to celebrate young people during the pandemic.

Our new storytelling initiative is part of our response to celebrating #pharmacyheroes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is about putting the spotlight on young people in community pharmacy – how they feel and what they’ve been doing during these challenging times to help keep patients and communities safe.

Over the next month or so we’ll be shining a light on the fact that many young people have been working very hard during the Covid-19 pandemic as key members of the pharmacy team and as volunteers helping get essential medicines to those who need them most


Dan, from East Sussex, is a newly qualified pharmacist …

“After being qualified for just five months, my regional manager called and asked if I would like to manage a store temporarily while the regular pharmacist went off on maternity leave. I started on the 16th of March and one week later the government announced we were going into lockdown.

It was invaluable having a brilliant dispensary team around me whose judgement I trusted as we dealt with situations that none of us had ever come across before, such as translating a Cyprian ladies’ medication into English with a GP as she became stranded in the UK; sourcing epilepsy medication for a young man with learning difficulties when he hadn’t managed to get hold of it for several days; and delivering hundreds of prescriptions to shielded patients even when our regular deliverer had to isolate as a shielded patient.

Recently, as things calmed down a bit, my girlfriend, who is also a pharmacist, and I moved to a new house. As we were unpacking boxes we found a picture frame that read “Our special memory, April 2020” – it was supposed to be used with an image from a planned holiday to France, but the only picture we have from that time is a selfie, taken as we left the pharmacy together having just worked a 14 hour shift alongside another member of the team. We have it on our mantlepiece to remind us of the amazing work we did during the COVID pandemic.”


We want to hear more experiences from young people in community pharmacy during this COVID-19 pandemic: whether you’ve found innovative ways to overcome challenges you’ve faced, kept a positive spirit, gone above-and-beyond to take care care of your patients, and much much more.

Share your story (300 words or less) here


For more information

lpc@communitypharmacyss.co.uk