Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was welcomed to Bestway Healthcare Service Centre depot in Stoke-on-Trent on Monday 1 July by Lord Zameer Choudrey and Haider Choudrey from the Bestway Group.
Keen to see first-hand the results of the significant investment which has been poured into the multi-channel site by the Bestway Group, and which delivers to over 760 Well Pharmacies and over 5000 independent pharmacies every day, houses their online digital pharmacy, online OTC shop, centralised script fulfilment centre and holds around 10m packs of medicine in stock, the Prime Minister was impressed by the levels of automation and innovation that make the HSC such a successful operating model.
Following a tour of the site, staff were invited to join him in a Q&A session and when probed about funding plans for pharmacy, the Prime Minister spoke passionately about his own experience of the value of community pharmacy, coming from a family of pharmacists and spending much of his youth helping the family with prescription deliveries, before expressing his support for the expansion of the Pharmacy First programme.