Written by Judit Mora, CEO and Co-founder, Nuumad
About Pinhoe Pharmacy
Pinhoe Pharmacy, based in Exeter, is an independent community pharmacy committed to delivering high quality patient care while adapting to the changing demands of modern healthcare.
Like many pharmacies across the UK, the business has had to evolve beyond traditional dispensing services and develop new clinical offerings that better serve patients while creating sustainable revenue streams. Today, services delivered under Patient Group Directions (PGDs), including travel health and weight management, play an increasingly important role in the pharmacy's growth strategy.
The Challenge: Delivering More Services in a Changing Pharmacy Landscape
For many pharmacy owners, dispensing alone is no longer enough to sustain long term growth. As healthcare increasingly shifts into community settings, pharmacies are being presented with new opportunities to deliver clinical services directly to patients. However, managing these services effectively brings its own challenges.
Clinical consultations require robust record keeping, clear governance processes, easy access to patient information, and systems that support teams working in busy environments. Staff turnover and the use of locum pharmacists can make consistency difficult, while increasing patient expectations demand a professional and seamless experience.
For Pinhoe Pharmacy, it became clear that relying on paper-based systems was not a viable long-term solution.
"We've got to embrace technology," says Archie Unger, Superintendent Pharmacist at Pinhoe Pharmacy. "If you're trying to deliver modern pharmacy services, you need systems that support that. Paper-based processes simply aren't where healthcare is going."
The Decision: Finding the Right Technology Partner
When evaluating technology providers, functionality was only part of the decision. For Archie, finding a partner that shared the pharmacy's values around patient care and continuous improvement was equally as important. This exact search led Pinhoe Pharmacy to Nuumad.
From the outset, the team found the platform intuitive and accessible for all members of staff, regardless of experience level. This was particularly important in an environment where locums and new team members need to become productive quickly.
Beyond ease of use, Nuumad's approach to collaboration stood out. Rather than simply offering a static product, the team demonstrated a willingness to listen to customer feedback, understand operational challenges and continuously evolve the platform to meet changing requirements.
"There was an immediate alignment in both values and working principles," says Archie. "The technology was impressive, but what really stood out was the shared focus on delivering great care by putting the patient at the centre of what we do and adopting a collaborative approach."
The Solution: How Nuumad Supports Service Delivery
Today, Nuumad underpins the delivery of a growing range of clinical services at Pinhoe Pharmacy. Nuumad digitises the entire PGD consultation process through structured, clinically governed consultation modules. Each workflow guides pharmacists through every stage of the consultation, from patient assessment and clinical decision-making to documentation and follow-up. Every consultation module has been custom designed to deliver a gold-standard patient journey rather than simply digitising a paper PGD. Patented workflows standardise consultations while allowing pharmacists to focus on patient care instead of paperwork. The platform enables the team to manage consultations digitally, maintain comprehensive patient records and access information quickly when needed for audits, inspections or ongoing care.
For pharmacy teams, this provides confidence that services are being delivered consistently and safely, while reducing administrative burden. As Archie explains: "One of Nuumad’s most important benefits is that its structured and easy-to-use system allows us to spend most of the consultation talking face to face with the patient, rather than concentrating on paperwork or navigating a complicated computer system. This supports a more natural, caring and patient-centred consultation."
The platform's flexibility has also allowed Pinhoe Pharmacy to expand beyond its original focus on travel health services. Weight management services, in particular, have become a significant area of growth. Nuumad enables the pharmacy team to manage these consultations efficiently while maintaining the governance standards required for patient safety.
Importantly, the system has been designed to support real-world pharmacy workflows. Whether being used by experienced pharmacist technicians, newer team members or locums, the platform provides a clear and logical process that helps ensure consistency across the business.
The Outcome: Results and Impact
The impact of adopting Nuumad has been substantial and by supporting the delivery and growth of high-value clinical services, the platform has helped Pinhoe Pharmacy build new revenue streams while maintaining high standards of patient care.
According to Archie, the financial contribution has been significant. "Nuumad has helped us generate additional revenue, between £120,000 and £150,000 over the last year and a half." They were able to do so through travel and weight loss clinics without increasing headcount and while maintaining dispensing volumes without impacting core services.
Beyond revenue, the pharmacy has benefited from:
Fully digitised service delivery and record keeping
Improved clinical governance and audit readiness
Greater operational efficiency
Easier onboarding for new and temporary staff
The ability to expand and scale new patient services with confidence
The Future: Looking Ahead
As patient expectations continue to evolve and new clinical services emerge, technology will play an increasingly important role in community pharmacy. For Pinhoe Pharmacy, success will depend on continuing to innovate, embrace new opportunities and work with partners that share the same commitment to patient care.
Archie believes the future belongs to pharmacies that are willing to adapt. "The biggest challenge for many pharmacy businesses is having the confidence to try new things. Not everything works, but if you don't evolve, you risk standing still."
Looking ahead, Archie also sees potential for Nuumad’s role to expand. Nuumad is specifically an information-technology tool that is easy to use. Looking ahead, I hope the data it collects can feed back into our wider systems, helping us build a more complete picture of each patient. This would allow us to provide more - and increasingly personalised - services throughout their health and health-education journey.
For Pinhoe Pharmacy, Nuumad has become more than a software provider. It has become a trusted partner in helping the business navigate the next chapter of community pharmacy.