PHX Ireland (McCabes Pharmacy and United Drug)

PHX Ireland is the country’s leading integrated healthcare provider, bringing together 110 McCabes Pharmacy stores, United Drug’s national distribution network, and TCP Homecare’s clinical home nursing services and direct-to-patient delivery solutions. With a team of over 2,500, they deliver 107 million packs of medicines and healthcare products to pharmacies and hospitals nationwide, helping over 650,000 patients across Ireland every year. As their business continues to grow, PHX Ireland turned to SafetyCulture to free up retail and distribution teams to focus on what matters most: keeping communities healthy.

Challenge

PHX Ireland’s retail and distribution teams were stretched thin because manual paperwork and multiple digital tools were taking hours away from patient care every day.

Solution

With SafetyCulture’s help, they brought all of their safety, compliance, and communication processes into one easy platform, connecting the pharmacy and warehouse to the customer.

Impact

Now, staff spend 40% less time on admin and more time helping patients, with faster audits, better compliance, and a safer workplace.

When old systems slow you down

When it comes to household-name pharmacies, the UK has Boots, the US has CVS, and Ireland has McCabes Pharmacy. They’ve been serving the Irish communities since 1981 and have recently become part of the PHX Ireland group. 

“Nearly every small town in Ireland has a pharmacy,” says Denis O’Driscoll, Superintendent Pharmacist at McCabes Pharmacy. “You can walk in and speak to a pharmacist without an appointment, and that conversation isn’t time-limited. That focus on patient care is met at all times across the business.”

But behind the counter, many pharmacists juggle much more than just patient care. They also manage audits, compliance checks, fridge temperature logs, and more – mainly on paper-based systems. With all these manual checks and admin, it left less time for patient care and made it difficult for leaders to track store operations, slowing down organizational progress. In fact, Regional Managers, who oversee 20+ stores each, spent much of their time on the road travelling between stores to make sure audits and regulations were being met.

Following a major expansion, PHX Ireland needed a smarter system, one that gave leaders visibility across stores, so that they knew where to prioritise improvements. 

“Previously, you’d fill in an audit on the intranet, get a copy by email, then put a follow-up reminder in my calendar… but we couldn’t track the status of them,” says Denis. “We needed to make the error reporting system simpler, faster, and easier – for head office, and for our colleagues and pharmacists in store.” 

“Our digital tools were siloed and didn’t talk to each other,” says Ann-Marie Broderick, Retail and Communications Manager. “I’ve been in the industry for over 25 years. Doing things the same way just wasn’t sustainable anymore. I said, there’s got to be a better way,” Ann-Marie adds. 

That’s when they came across SafetyCulture.

Easing the load for frontline pharmacy and warehouse teams

Rolling out SafetyCulture across a long-established workforce meant starting small. McCabes introduced simple checklists first, gradually expanding to advanced features as teams grew more confident.

Streamlining error reporting to lift quality of service

With high volumes of outgoing products, human error is a risk PHX Ireland takes seriously. Even with robotic dispensers, ‘SALADs’ (Sound-Alike Look-Alike Drugs) are a known risk, and every item must be checked by a pharmacist. 

“Customers need to be confident they’re getting the right medication and advice on their healthcare journey. It’s critical we get it right every time,” says Ann-Marie. Now, with SafetyCulture, they can reduce the frequency of them and set benchmarks to improve upon regularly.

Previously, errors were manually logged in spreadsheets and reviewed annually, limiting insight and slowing improvements. Now, using Issues and the Analytics dashboard, teams instantly get visibility into what went wrong, where, and why. When an issue or compliance flag pops up, Actions automatically alerts the pharmacist of when it’s been responded to and any corrective actions.

“If I see something during an audit, I can ping the pharmacist or store manager right away. They can start working on it immediately, and I can track progress in real-time,” explains Denis.

“It’s cleaner, more detailed, and faster. We can spot trends, track resolution times, and improve our quality of service for every patient. We’re also getting the best possible data out of SafetyCulture to report back to HSE, so we can improve month on month, and year on year.”

Keeping equipment and stock safe, and protecting medication and people

Another area that PHX Ireland takes seriously is its hundreds of fridges, medical devices, and temperature-sensitive stock. McCabes has each store registered as Assets in SafetyCulture, populated with relevant information about that location, such as store type and opening hours. This gives teams easy access to critical information about stores wherever they are, all in one place.

Their teams also now save time on recording fridge temperatures by hand twice a day by usingSensors. Now, if the temperature goes out of range, the team gets an alert within 30 minutes. So they can easily protect temperature-sensitive stock. Their stock now maintains its safety and efficacy, and their teams save hours on searching for records or chasing maintenance – giving them back time to spend with their customers.  

“When we introduced the sensors, we found fridges that needed fixing or replacing right away,” says Ann-Marie. “Those fridges could have anything from €10,000 to €30,000 worth of medication in them. The potential loss across 110 sites is massive.” 

In one year alone, sensors saved over 3,000 staff hours, freeing staff up for patient care and higher-value work and preventing costly stock loss during storms and power outages. 

They’ve since been able to calibrate all fridges to each store and are accredited by a UKAS-certified body, leading the way for pharmacies across the UK and Ireland with automated compliance.

Strengthening frontline-manager relationships with a one-to-many communication tool

With 110 stores, clear communication is essential to delivering a consistent customer experience and top-tier patient care. One way PHX Ireland now ensures every frontline worker is up to date is through Heads Up.

Ann-Marie uses it to notify their teams about new processes or urgent updates, so she can instantly see who’s read and acknowledged them. 

“It’s one of my favorite features and is a game-changer for making sure everyone’s on the same page,” she says. Staff can also ask questions or give feedback right in the platform, making two-way communication between the frontline and management simple. 

Now, PHX Ireland can roll out changes faster, and store teams spend less time chasing emails and sorting their inboxes.

Spotting and solving problems early

With the Retail teams quickly seeing time and efficiency gains, PHX Ireland introduced the system to their back-of-house operations at United Drug’s warehouse. 

“With the old system, it was easy for things to slip through the cracks,” explains Tom Brown, Head of Environmental, Health and Safety for United Drug. “If you have a safety incident, you want to learn from that because you need to prevent recurrence. SafetyCulture can really help with that.”

Now, United Drugs uses Issues to report hazards or near misses on the spot. Staff can use their phones to snap a photo, record a video, or write some context in the same platform they use every day. So the right person gets automatically alerted, and teams can act on issues right away.

PHX Ireland also uses Sensors for medicine storage, as well as Actions and Investigations, to make sure their warehouse and distribution teams can quickly address issues as they happen. They’re also now exploring Documents and Lone Worker. 

“I was a bit like a kid in a sweet shop,” admits Tom. “I’ve also been developing an investigation process on the platform that enables us to go through those steps quickly and easily.” 

His custom investigations template is now being used to help teams learn from incidents and prevent repeat issues. It’s since led to faster, more thorough investigations – and a culture where 

small mistakes no longer become big problems and more hazards are caught early. So United Drugs is a safer and more efficient workplace for every worker.

Industry-leading care, powered by SafetyCulture

With a centralized platform in place, PHX Ireland can now connect teams better, easily spot and solve problems as they happen, and now have better visibility over what’s happening on the ground, at every location. All while giving their frontline teams a place to be heard and boosting their confidence in everyday tasks.

 “We can spot trends, move drugs to safer locations, and relaunch SOPs when needed,” says Ann-Marie. “Instead of paper diaries that stayed in one store, we now have insights that help every pharmacy improve.” 

As a result, PHX Ireland now has a culture where everyone feels valued and has the tools they need to be successful. Using SafetyCulture, they have also been able to set a new standard for healthcare operations across the country. 

By connecting every part of the business from the warehouse floor to the pharmacy counter, PHX Ireland gives teams the tools and confidence to focus on what matters most: delivering safe, high-quality care to their communities.