At McLernons we have been almost as busy as our customers over the past 5 months since the Corona virus first hit these shores and dramatically changed the way we work and live.

As community pharmacists faced huge pressures trying to balance vastly increased numbers of repeat prescriptions and requests for advice and information from worried patients with the need to restrict entry to their business premises and secure the health and safety of their staff.

We were able to help them adapt to new ways of working – our engineers were delivering new systems, laptops and EPOS systems to allow for more distanced dispensing or facilitate new tills at the very front of the pharmacy. Our trainers were working remotely, preparing and updating our instruction manuals to include our latest software development and often literally on the other end of the phone to guide customers through any software programmes that they were unfamiliar with.

Our two mobile apps, Medi Marshal and MPS Mobile, have been going from strength to strength. Medi Marshal can be used on its own or embedded within our branded version to allow patients to reorder prescriptions, communicate directly in a managed fashion with the pharmacy and access their own dispensing history. MPS Mobile allows our customers who operate a prescription collection service to use their driver’s time more efficiently and better manage the workflow in the dispensary. Patients are notified when their ‘script has been collected, and receive further messages when the ‘script is in the pharmacy and when the medicines are available for collection. As we face into the Autumn, anything that can help manage a queue outside a pharmacy must be welcomed.

Our customer services and accounts team worked tirelessly from their homes to ensure that the seamless customer support which is expected by our customers was maintained.

And throughout this, and despite the Covid restrictions, our sales team answered queries, spoke with new customers and welcomed more community pharmacies onto the McLernons platform.

One of the many new customers is  McCabes Pharmacy, founded over 35 years ago by Roy and Margaret McCabe and their family-run business now extends to 28 pharmacies across Ireland. We are delighted to welcome them on board and look forward to building the same relationship with them that we have with all our customers, whether they be independents, groups or part of a franchise. We value the personal relationships that we make with our customers, strengthened by the fact that our trainers and engineers are allocated on a regional basis so you should always see the same familiar faces.

In this time of uncertainty, and with trade shows, event and large meetings having been cancelled, we will be working harder than ever to grow our relationships with our customers, bring new products and services to market and help you grow your business and look after your patients in these uncertain times.