As we begin a new year and enter a new decade, our Chief Executive Danielle Hunt reflects on her first year in post, the 10 years since our relaunch and shares details of the charity’s refreshed vision and mission moving forward.

It’s been quite a first year for me here at Pharmacist Support – meeting people from across the profession, connecting with organisations in the sector and exploring new ways we can support the people we are here to help. The charity is extremely fortunate to work alongside such a great team of supporters and volunteers, who help our fantastic charity team to reach as many people as possible.

It has been clear to see some of the unique challenges faced by those in the profession, and important for us as a charity to raise awareness of the impact this is having on individuals. In September, we were grateful to be provided with an opportunity to highlight some of the pressures impacting pharmacist’s wellbeing at a joint event with Chemist and Druggist in Parliament. Following this event, we ran our annual #GoGreen4PS fundraiser, which provided much needed funds for the charity.

Our new 5-year strategy

As we embark on delivery of our new strategy, it’s great to look back and see just how far we have come. In the last 10 years the charity has provided 26,898 acts of support. This included dealing with 7681 enquiries, making 2,734 calls to individuals struggling with a range of stressful situations through our Listening Friends helpline/scheme and providing grants totaling £2,121,059 to 1408 individuals.

The charity’s new vision – ‘No one in our pharmacy family will face challenging times without us by their side’ – demonstrates our continued commitment to the profession. Reviewing our activity over the last ten years, speaking to our stakeholders and carrying out market research with the profession has provided invaluable insight that has informed the future direction of the charity. From our research, we found 97% of potential service users said they need some kind of support from the charity, with respondents identifying managing work life balance, stress and wellbeing as the issues they most needed support with.

Our mission ‘To champion the wellbeing of our pharmacy family’ provides the charity with a renewed focus on providing more proactive support around wellbeing. Our new five-year strategy will be available on our website in the coming weeks – so watch this space!