Mullingar woman’s training ‘bibles’ for pharmacy technician staff
A Mullingar healthcare professional who started created training materials for colleagues joining her firm has turned what was initially intended as a one-off solution into a new business.
Jessica Egerton, a pharmacy technician from Mullingar with over 15 years’ experience working in community pharmacy in Ireland and Australia, kept seeing the same problem everywhere she worked: “People could be qualified and have the right knowledge, but still feel completely unprepared when they walked into a busy community pharmacy for the first time,” she says.
That prompted her to start creating practical resources for the teams she worked with, and over time they became jokingly known as ‘the bibles’.
“Eventually I thought: ‘Why am I only giving this to my own teams?’ – and that question led to Pharmacy Standard.”
Once that question presented itself, Jessica began the process of building what has now a business, including developing the Pharmacy Technician Survival Guide, a practical resource designed to bridge the gap between pharmacy education and real-world community pharmacy.
Now, Pharmacy Standard as well as having resources for technicians, has manager training resources and pharmacy licensing options for pharmacies looking to improve their on-boarding and development of staff.
“The response since launching has been encouraging, and the first orders are coming in from pharmacy technicians around Ireland,” says Jessica, originally from Dublin and living in Mullingar for 11 years.
“I’m married with three young children, so building Pharmacy Standard has happened alongside family life,” she said. “A lot of the work is in the evenings, on lunch breaks and whenever I could find a spare bit of time!”
Jessica knows the business from all levels: a qualified pharmacy technician, she also holds a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy Management and Practice, and is currently completing a Level 9 postgraduate certificate in health practice management.
“I began researching the idea and speaking to pharmacy technicians, pharmacists, managers and people working across the profession. I also created early prototypes of the guide and sent them to people for feedback.
“The response was encouraging, and I kept hearing variations of the same two things: ‘ wish I had this when I started’ and ‘how does this not already exist?’.
“That feedback gave me the confidence to take the idea further.”
“There is currently no statutory registration framework for pharmacy technicians in Ireland, and the PSI has identified that the qualification is not standardised,” says Jessica. “The PSI has also highlighted the need to consider the future role of pharmacy technicians, including scope of practice, regulation and standardisation.
“For me, Pharmacy Standard is about contributing to that bigger conversation in a practical way. I want to help bring more consistency to how pharmacy technicians are supported, trained and developed, while recognising the reality of how busy community pharmacies are.”
The first products are the Pharmacy Technician Survival Guide and the Technician Induction Manager Toolkit – practical resources designed to support technicians as they find their feet and help pharmacies provide a more structured approach to onboarding and development.
“Pharmacy Standard is about something much bigger than two guides,” says Jessica. “My goal is to help change the standard of community pharmacy – how we train, how we support people, how we develop our teams and how we prepare the next generation of pharmacy technicians. And this really is just the beginning.”