The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7174 p701-706
17 November 2001

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Boots tests more open display of pharmacy medicines in glass cabinets

The glass cabinets are secured but not locked. Health care assistants or pharmacists counsel patients in front of the cabinets and take out the products that the customer selects

Boots The Chemists has replaced the traditional pharmacy counter with glass display cabinets for pharmacy medicines in a number of stores as part of a trial of a new core format for its branches.

The cabinets are secured but not locked. Health care assistants or pharmacists counsel customers in front of the cabinets and take out the products that the customer selects. Customers pay for the products at tills situated away from the medicines area.

Helen Baker, customer development manager, Boots, said that all the assistants in stores using the cabinets have received health care training. Medicines area staff have received additional training in certain product areas and in judging customer behaviour. Electronic point of sale equipment at the till points prompts staff to ask customers if they have received sufficient advice about their chosen purchase.

"Taking away the pharmacy counter releases space within the store," Ms Baker said. "It increases the amount of interaction between staff and customers. As staff in the medicines area no longer have to spend time taking money for purchases, it gives them more time to spend talking to the customers." The company has no plans to remove the glass doors from the cabinets and move to open display of P medicines. The cabinet holds nearly all the P medicines stocked by the pharmacy with the exception of a few medicines needing additional supervision, such as emergency hormonal contraception, that are kept in the dispensary.

As part of the new core format trial, Boots's store at Wallingford, Oxfordshire, has been fitted with a carousel in the dispensary, making it one of the smallest Boots stores to have one. A consultation booth has also been installed. This is used for counselling patients and for undertaking health advice services. Two services are currently offered: a heart health check, which includes blood pressure and cholesterol measurements and a computer-based risk assessment costing £20, and the Pro-change smoking cessation programme (PJ, 9 December 2000, p850).

Boots has spent £5m refurbishing 23 stores as part of the new core format trial. Of these, 19 are in the Thames Valley area and the other four in Yorkshire. The trial stores have been clustered so that customers' reactions can be judged when visiting a number of stores.

Two versions of the format have been developed. These are for small or local stores, such as Wallingford, where the emphasis is mainly on health care with some beauty and personal care product displays. The larger or destination stores have a greater emphasis on beauty products, including premium cosmetics. These stores have a reduced pharmacy counter, as seen at previous concept stores including Bluewater, Kent, (PJ, 27 March 1999, p437), rather than the visible P medicine cabinets.

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