Entrepreneur Feisal Nahaboo agrees strategic partnership with Pharmadoctor to roll-out GP-type Services in Alitam Pharmacies to help reduce NHS waiting times
Thanks to another innovative move from Alitam CEO and founder Feisal Nahaboo, Alitam pharmacies have entered into a strategic partnership with Pharmadoctor and will ‘within weeks’ feature walk-in, GP-type clinical services to address the chronic shortage of accessible healthcare within communities.
Former Avicenna Group Executive Director Bharti Patel has joined Alitam to support their immediate roll out to the nation.
Alitam pharmacies across the UK and Ireland will soon be providing a range of walk-in GP-type services to patients, allowing them to ‘fast-track’ access to medical treatment while removing the burden on the NHS.
Alitam founder and CEO Feisal Nahaboo has today announced a strategic partnership between Alitam, the visionary 100-plus pharmacy store group, and Pharmadoctor, the industry experts in providing the tools and resources for instore medical clinical services.
Under the new partnership, Alitam pharmacies will provide a wide range of clinical services including men’s and women’s health checks, weight loss, a travel clinic, and hair loss treatment.
These services will initially be trialled within a number of Alitam stores “within weeks” before being rolled out nationwide, enabling patients to access urgent medical care without the need to wait for a GP or hospital appointment.
Hailing the new service as a “milestone for healthcare”, Nahaboo says that it will also help relieve the pressure on the UK’s overburdened GPs and hospitals.
He said: “This will be a milestone for healthcare in the UK and Ireland. Patients can walk into their local pharmacy and be assessed and treated for a range of health issues, typically provided by a GP.
“Clinical services will include men’s and women’s health checks, weight loss, a travel clinic, hair loss and many more.
“We will be directly addressing the difficulty patients have in getting an urgent appointment with their GP, or at the local hospital, and substantially reducing the burden on primary healthcare as a result.”
While the Covid-19 pandemic undoubtedly spurred on a technology revolution, Nahaboo believes that it has also ushered in the need for a ‘healthcare revolution’.
NHS waiting lists for routine treatments currently stand at 6million, predicted to rise to eight to 10million within a year, while GP surgeries are also facing unprecedented pressure and appointment backlogs.
Nahaboo’s vision to reshape the healthcare landscape is predicated upon expanding the role of the community pharmacist.
He recently announced a multi-billion-pound plan to launch a chain of ‘Super Pharmacies’ across the UK and Ireland within the next five years which will embed preventative healthcare by drawing upon the skills and expertise of “underutilised” pharmacists.
The addition of GP-type services is seen as the first step towards the multi-billion-pound Super Pharmacy concept, which will offer everything from highly regulated ophthalmic and audiology services to physiotherapy and even midwife-led care.
Nahaboo added: “The Alitam mandate is to shift our healthcare system from one of disease treatment, to one of disease prevention.
“The pandemic highlighted the parlous state of our existing healthcare model. The shift to a preventative model is a radical one but, thanks to the skills and training of our under-utilised pharmacists, the existing pharmacy infrastructure, and the resources of Pharmadoctor, we can speedily make it happen.
“Initially we will focus on a core suite of clinical services, with a test launch in nominated pharmacies.
“We will garner patient feedback and then adapt and refine in order to develop a best-practice methodology before rolling this out across all Alitam stores.
“You can see how, through easy access to weight-loss clinics for example, many issues related to being overweight—such as diabetes and heart conditions—will be avoided.
“And a great deal of anxiety, that goes along with being unable to find medical help, will be reduced.”
Bharti Patel, a former executive director of the Avicenna Group who was personally headhunted by Nahaboo, is the Group Executive Director at Alitam responsible for managing the partnership with Pharmadoctor, and overseeing the roll-out of clinical services in pharmacies.
Praising the new Alitam-Pharmadoctor alliance, she said: “This represents a remarkable alignment of purpose and capability.
“The Alitam vision is for accessible, affordable preventative healthcare in local communities and through our partnership with Pharmadoctor we’ll be able to provide a suite of much-needed clinical services.
“These will truly leverage the abilities and skills of our pharmacists, enabling them to offer care beyond traditional prescription management.
“Now they will be addressing the holistic needs of patients, at a time when they have never needed this approach more.
“We are fully embracing all the tools Pharmadoctor have to offer, across both the electronic platforms and clinical skills training, so that we can urgently address the need for patients to receive face-to-face care.
“It’s a fact that many GPs are still unable to offer this. Imagine affordable appointments and treatments, without the wait, but with the personal attention so often needed, and all of which is within the patient’s local community. With Alitam, this is now the reality.”
Graham Thoms, CEO of Pharmadoctor (pictured above), is highly enthusiastic about the future possibilities for pharmacy and the healthcare world.
He said: “As Feisal says, this represents a crucial step in a movement towards ‘preventative and empowering healthcare’.
“We have long known that, through innovative systems and training, pharmacies can offer so much more than people currently realise.
“I’m delighted that Alitam are implementing our highly effective tools and resources, with their reach across the UK and Ireland it will make a huge impact.
“Bharti and I are working closely together and achieving an enormous amount at speed. Speed is of the essence, as Alitam seeks to address issues like the NHS waiting lists of 6million people.”
Thoms will also be joining Nahaboo’s recently announced Global Reset 2022 initiative—a new collective of the best minds within the business, financial, medical and political sectors tasked with constructing a revolutionary new national preventative healthcare system underpinned by pharmacies.
Speaking of the first-of-its-kind initiative, Nahaboo said: “Through my Global Reset 2022 initiative, a collective of thought-leaders from all sectors to explore radical solutions to our healthcare crisis, I will be sharing this best-practice.
“I will also be reaching out to pharmacies outside the Alitam group, urging them to follow suit and fully capitalise on the abilities of their clinically skilled pharmacists.
“Our movement is resolutely focused on delivering a preventative healthcare system which fully meets the health and wellbeing needs of our population of 66 million.
“Alitam is at the vanguard, setting the standard, and I want many pharmacists in the land to join us in this movement.
“I know some pharmacists are being proactive already. I commend them. But the majority are lagging behind somewhat, still dependent on NHS funding rather than investing in their business to create a foundation to deliver a number of medical services.”
Thoms added: “We are completely aligned with Alitam in our purpose and vision. An enormous burden on GPs and hospitals is about to be lifted thanks to the know-how of Pharmadoctor, and the vision of Alitam.
“I look forward to working with all pharmacies, everywhere, to build the preventative healthcare model which will change—and save—lives.”
The pharmacy is the brainchild of Nahaboo, and his second Overnight Multiple Merger Model (OMMM). His first OMMM saw him merge 122 independent accountancy firms in a record-breaking 256 working days, to create leading accountancy firm Xeinadin.
According to the Irish Times, Xeinadin went on to post revenues in May 2020 of £110.3million, and earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (asset repayments) of £39.9million—a figure far higher than that typically seen in the sector and representative of the type of growth which typically takes 50-100 years to achieve.
Xeinadin have since continued to flourish, recently commanding a valuable chunk of private investment from private equity firm Exponent.
Alitam plan to announce a number of new strategic partners over the coming weeks.
