We Won Pharmacy of the Year 2025 — What It Means for Our Patients

What is the Pharmacy of the Year award?

The pharmacy of the year Medway recognition is one of the most meaningful accolades a community pharmacy can receive. Rather than measuring commercial performance alone, the award evaluates a pharmacy against criteria that genuinely matter to patients: clinical standards, patient outcomes, delivery of NHS commissioned services, staff development, and active engagement with the local community. Judges look at the full picture of how a pharmacy functions as a healthcare setting — not simply as a dispensing counter.

For a community pharmacy in Gillingham serving a diverse and often underserved population, this kind of recognition carries particular weight. The ME7 area has higher-than-average rates of long-term conditions, a significant proportion of patients who face barriers to accessing GP care, and a clear need for a pharmacy that goes beyond repeat prescription dispensing. Being assessed against clinical excellence criteria — and winning — tells the community that Medway Pharmacy is delivering at a standard that independent clinical reviewers recognise as outstanding.

The award also matters because it is not self-declared. It requires external scrutiny of how services are actually delivered, what patient feedback looks like in practice, and whether the pharmacy is meeting the expectations set by the NHS and by professional regulatory bodies. Winning it in 2025 reflects a sustained effort across every part of the team, not a single moment. Medway Council's official A Better Medway Awards page lists Medway Pharmacy as the 2025 Pharmacy of the Year winner.

What was Medway Pharmacy recognised for?

Several specific areas stood out during the assessment. The first was accessibility. Medway Pharmacy usually opens Monday to Sunday from 7:30am to 10pm — 100 hours in a standard week, excluding bank holidays — making it one of the longest-opening pharmacies in the Medway area. This is not simply a commercial decision: it ensures that patients who work long hours, those who cannot leave home during the day, and those who develop symptoms on evenings or weekends have somewhere to go without waiting for a GP surgery to open.

Patient satisfaction was another factor. With a 4.7-star rating on Google from over 500 verified reviews, the feedback consistently highlights the approachability of the pharmacists, the speed of service, and the quality of clinical advice given. That volume of reviews, sustained at that rating, reflects genuine and repeated positive patient experiences rather than a handful of outliers.

Our delivery of NHS Pharmacy First — covering all seven clinical pathways including UTIs, earache, sinusitis, and impetigo — was also assessed. Pharmacist-led consultations carried out in a private consultation room, with clinical decisions made by GPhC-registered pharmacists rather than healthcare assistants, were specifically noted. The breadth of clinical services available at the pharmacy, from hypertension case-finding to the contraception service, rounded out the picture of a genuinely clinical community pharmacy in Gillingham.

What do patients say about Medway Pharmacy?

Patient reviews tell a consistent story. The most frequently cited theme is the ability to get genuine clinical advice from a pharmacist without the delay and difficulty of booking a GP appointment. For many patients in the ME7 area, access to a GP can take days or even weeks. Being able to walk in to Medway Pharmacy, speak to a qualified pharmacist, and leave with a clear answer — or, where appropriate, with a prescription-only medicine supplied under an NHS service — makes a measurable difference to how people manage their health.

Reviews frequently mention the late-night opening hours as a practical lifeline. Parents dealing with a child's earache at 9pm, patients who finish work after every GP surgery has closed, elderly patients who rely on family members available only in the evenings — these are the people for whom extended hours are not a convenience but a necessity. Patients describe the staff as knowledgeable and approachable, and note that they never feel rushed or dismissed.

The speed of service is also mentioned repeatedly. Prescription dispensing is quick, but patients particularly value that clinical consultations are available without a long wait. Trust is at the core of what makes a community pharmacy effective, and the volume and consistency of positive feedback from patients in Gillingham and across Medway suggest that Medway Pharmacy has earned that trust over time.

What does the award mean for patients going forward?

Winning Pharmacy of the Year 2025 is not something we want to treat as a finishing line. For the team at Medway Pharmacy, it reinforces the direction we have been heading in and gives us a clear mandate to keep improving. Pharmacist Sukhdip Bahia and pharmacist Emmanuella Torto-Doku are both committed to expanding clinical capability at the pharmacy in line with the NHS's growing ambitions for community pharmacy, and this award reflects the work that has already been done in that direction.

In practical terms, patients in Gillingham and across the Medway area can expect continued investment in clinical services. As the NHS expands community pharmacy services — including Pharmacy First, hypertension case-finding, the contraception service, and future pathways that are currently in development — Medway Pharmacy will continue to be an early and active adopter. Staff training is ongoing, and the pharmacy remains committed to ensuring that every clinical service is delivered to the highest possible standard.

For patients, the most important message is straightforward: the pharmacy you use should function as a genuine healthcare destination, not just a place to collect prescriptions. Medway Pharmacy has been independently recognised as doing exactly that. If you are not already using Medway Pharmacy as your nominated pharmacy, or if there are services you have not yet taken advantage of, we encourage you to speak to the team. We are usually open Monday to Sunday from 7:30am to 10pm at 465 Canterbury Street, Gillingham, excluding bank holidays, and our pharmacists are here to help with far more than dispensing.