Community Pharmacy Design and Fit-Out for Dufftown Pharmacy and Dispensary Expansion for Clark’s Chemist, Keith
Overview
Having owned Dufftown Pharmacy in Dufftown for nine years and Clark’s Pharmacy in Keith for 20 years, community pharmacist Colin Clark has built up a reputation for excellent customer service. In the past 18 months, Colin took the decision to undertake a full refit of Dufftown Pharmacy and, more recently, scale up the size of the dispensary at Clark Chemist in Keith.
Dufftown Pharmacy – Full Refit
Dufftown Pharmacy has been an integral part of the community for over 30 years and has been owned by Colin for the last nine years.
Commenting on the refit, Colin said:
“When I first took over Dufftown Pharmacy, I did some minor tweaks with some local tradesmen, but as the years went by, the need for a full refit became increasingly obvious and necessary. I had heard about Retail Design Consultants standard of workmanship from my pharmacy colleagues, and when Terry came to see me, he gave me the confidence to know I could fully trust RDC to deliver an excellent redesign.
“Community pharmacy shopfitting is a specialist area and the whole team have a thorough knowledge of how to deliver from start to finish.
“The team ripped out the whole dispensary, right back to the bare walls and also re-laid the floors. This took a lot more floor-filling than was expected. When the original floors were removed, the foundations underneath were in extremely poor condition, so they all had to be filled in and levelled.
“Once RDC had fitted out the dispensary, we moved back in and then the rest of the shop was refitted. Although Dufftown Pharmacy is smaller than my pharmacy in Keith, this was the bigger of the refits because the project involved new flooring, new heating, new lighting, and a complete shop fit-out.
Colin continued:
“I had an idea of what I wanted the pharmacy to look like but having the expert eye of Terry Cuthill has made a huge difference to the end result. We have doubled the size of the dispensary and lost the minimum of retail space in the process. At the planning stage, Terry managed to optimise the space – much more than I expected. We now have a more pleasant environment to work in that has been well-received by staff and customers alike.
“Due to the pandemic, it is difficult to gauge if the refit has increased footfall. We will be able to get a handle on that once we return to more normal circumstances.
“Scripts have definitely increased, and we now offer a twice a day delivery service. I also worked in Dufftown Health Centre one day per week as a practice pharmacist, so that has helped me develop relations with the local community. That rapport has had a positive impact on the pharmacy.
“As a pharmacy owner, this is the first time I have undertaken a full refit, and if I am honest, I was dreading the prospect. I have been involved in refits in previous roles, and they are usually a nightmare experience. I have to say, this was completely the opposite.
“Terry’s attention to detail and his planning process 1) allowed us to get a much more efficient use of the available space and, 2) Terry was with us every step of the way. The team who did the job were fantastic, nothing was ever a problem, and I can’t praise them highly enough. They took the stress out of what I thought was going to be a very painful process.
Beneficial Payment Terms
“Another really appealing aspect was that the payment terms were excellent. We paid an initial instalment and then another two payments over a set period and that made things easier to cope with financially.”
Project Details:
- Survey
- Design
- Project management
- Ceilings
- Flooring
- Electrics – heating/lighting/power
- Data/phone
- Plumbing
- Decoration
- Complete internal fit out to retail and dispensary area including window display, retail displays, counters, specialist dispensary fittings, Covid screens
Doubled Dispensary Size, Clark’s Pharmacy, Keith
“I have just celebrated 20 years of owning Clark’s Pharmacy in Keith, and although it is three times the size of Dufftown Pharmacy, the dispensary area wasn’t working for us. We knew we needed to make it far more efficient. I was so impressed with Retail Design Consultants work in Dufftown that I called them back in to advise. I consulted with Terry, and again he brought the team’s expertise to create a dispensary twice the size of the original and in fitting with the existing shop design.
“The old dispensary had an island positioned at a 90-degree angle. Some clever thinking has been applied to create two islands that are now located in the middle of the dispensary. We have also gone from two workbenches to six. Although we lost a little bit of retail space, we could afford to do so because we have such a large floor area. The area used to be small and cramped and it is now a far more pleasant environment to operate in.
“The business has increased dramatically over the last 20 years and that, combined with the pandemic, has resulted in far greater demand for our well-established delivery service. For example, we used to have to do weekly dosette boxes and nursing home prescriptions in a separate office, but this can all now be done in the dispensary area. This doesn’t sound significant but in terms of communication within the dispensing team and asking questions, it is really helpful to be able to work together in one space.”
Project Details:
- Survey
- Design
- Project management
- Ceiling
- Flooring
- Electrics – lighting/power
- Data/phone
- Plumbing/heating
- Complete internal fit out to pharmacy retail / advice counters and dispensary areas including floor levelling, counters, specialist dispensary fitting, Covid screens
Terry Cuthill of Retail Design Consultants commented:
“Although pharmacy design is what we do on a daily basis, every community pharmacy is different and has varying requirements, so we always bring fresh eyes and perspective to each project. We have an established reputation for creating and delivering pharmacy design which stands the test of time and can be adapted and tweaked in future years.”