Your Deliveries, Handled - Part rounds, care home runs and cover when your driver is away.

If you run a community pharmacy or a dispensing practice, you probably already have a delivery driver, and a delivery round that mostly works. The problems are at the edges: the week your driver is on holiday, the morning they ring in sick, the care home run that eats half a day, the villages at the far end of the route.

Where a delivery round comes under strain

Holidays and sickness are the obvious ones. Cover usually falls on someone from the dispensary who is needed behind the counter, or deliveries wait a day. Then there is the work that doesn't fit the round: a weekly batch to two care homes, or outlying villages that take a disproportionate share of the driver's time.

Agency and app-based drivers can fill a gap, but it can mean a different face at the door each time, and very little say over how your patients' medication is handled once it leaves you.

None of this means replacing your own driver. It means having someone you trust for the parts your round can't absorb.

Three ways I can help

I work alongside your existing arrangements, to your written procedure:

Care home batch runs. One collection from your dispensary and up to two care homes per visit, at an agreed time, sign-in and handover procedures already known, nobody new to brief.

Part rounds. The outlying villages, the care home deliveries, or the busiest days of the month, run on a fixed schedule while your own driver handles the rest.

Holiday and emergency cover. Booked in advance for planned leave, or on the day when your driver is off sick.

Every delivery is handled by me personally: the same person every time, healthcare items carried on their own, sealed tamper-evident bags where your procedure needs them, and named handover only, never left unattended.

A record of every delivery. Timestamped proof of delivery, a record of any failed delivery, and a written report the same day if anything goes wrong.

Data protection in place from day one. A data processing agreement as standard, and DBS checked.

You keep your driver and your round. I take the parts that stretch it, and if something changes, you call me, the person doing it.

Starting small

Most pharmacies will start with one thing, a care home run, or cover for a fortnight in the summer. A Standing Arrangement then fixes the days and times, and the work runs without re-briefing. If it works well, more can move across over time; if it doesn't, you haven't reorganised anything.

What your care homes and patients notice

The same person at the door, at the agreed time, handing over to the right person with a record of it. For a care home, that consistency matters as much as the delivery itself: sign-in procedures already known, handover requirements already agreed, nobody new to brief.

How it is priced

Everything is billed by time, in 15-minute blocks. Same-day and one-off work runs on HL Standard at £45 an hour, first hour minimum, plus 95p a mile. Regular care home batch runs suit HL Partnership: £40 an hour, 4 hours a month, plus 95p a mile. Part rounds are agreed as a contract with a fixed monthly price for your schedule. Planned cover is quoted for each cover period after a short call, with no minimum term. Part rounds and planned cover include all mileage.

A limited number of arrangements

I work with a small number of clients by design, it is what allows every delivery to be handled personally. If your round needs cover, or part of it would sit better with someone else, I would welcome a conversation.

Next week: The solicitor's courier problem, and why most services do not solve it.

Call me to talk through your delivery round: 07795 504 739 · caindirect.co.uk/healthcare-logistics · Lincoln · Sleaford · Grantham · Newark-on-Trent