Previously, retail pharmacies at different SingHealth hospitals and institutions operated independently, with differing product ranges and prices. Understandably, this created not only operational inefficiencies, but also inconvenience for patients.

To address this, SingHealth Pharmacare was set up in 2017 to consolidate all retail pharmacy operations. By creating a unified brand, operations and customer care can be standardised and standards, elevated. Internally, it also provides improved opportunities for career progression.

One of the key figures behind the transformation is Ms Irene Ang, Deputy Director, Retail Pharmacy, SingHealth.

One of the biggest difficulties of her role was getting buy-in from stakeholders, said Ms Ang. She remembers her first year at Pharmacare as a time filled with “many presentations” at meetings with hospital personnel to share about the benefits of consolidation. Within a year, the very first outlet at SingHealth Polyclinic – Bedok was launched in 2017.

“The initial plan was to consolidate everything by 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so the entire plan was delayed for almost three years,” said Ms Ang. At present, there are 13 physical outlets and two online stores — one on Lazada and the other on the newly launched SingHealth Pharmacare website.

Ms Ang has always allowed both her passions and skills to guide her career path. As an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, she pursued a degree in pharmacy, which was newly offered then, because of her interest in Chemistry.

Upon graduation, she was presented with various career options: to be a pharmacist in the healthcare industry, join a pharmaceutical company, or work in retail pharmacy. As she had already experienced working in hospitals during her internship at the Ministry of Health, she wanted to try something different. Being someone who enjoys shopping and interacting with people, she took the plunge into retail pharmacy as she thought it would be aligned with her interests.

However, that choice had its challenges. As a retail pharmacist, Ms Ang had to manage the entire outlet, handling tasks such as marketing and merchandising, which were beyond a pharmacist’s typical responsibilities. “I was exposed to many new things as I was in charge of the entire shop. I had to decide how I wanted to display the products and how to market them, such as whether to put up posters or hand out leaflets,” she said.

She later moved up the career ladder and into business-related roles at NTUC HealthCare and Dairy Farm International, which owns Guardian Health & Beauty pharmacies. At NTUC HealthCare, where she worked for 18 years, her prior merchandising experience led to a role in its headquarters as one of the pioneers of Unity pharmacies, handling advertising and promotion. Over the course of her career, she unexpectedly discovered that she enjoyed the business aspect of her roles. “Someone once told me that I’d make a better businesswoman than I would a pharmacist,” she added with a laugh.

Since joining SingHealth in 2016, Ms Ang has seen her role expand significantly, blending her pharmaceutical knowledge with the business acumen she developed over the years. “As a retail pharmacist, you will face situations that you were never taught how to deal with in school,” she said.

Still, she recognised that there were gaps in her expertise. “I saw that I needed to broaden my knowledge even more for me to perform better in my job,” she shared. She thus pursued additional qualifications, including an MBA in Retailing in 2010.

Since completing the consolidation process for SingHealth Pharmacare in 2022, Ms Ang has been heartened by the positive response from recent surveys. Beyond the challenges of improving sales and customer service, she takes pride in the achievements and resilience demonstrated by the frontline staff and middle management who uphold SingHealth Pharmacare’s mission; their positive attitude has contributed much to Pharmacare’s success.

“My job is also to focus on what I can do to enable my staff to stretch their potential,” Ms Ang added. “I enjoy bouncing ideas off them, monitor sales, and perform data analyses so that we are able to plan better.”

In her free time, Ms Ang relaxes by crocheting, a hobby she recently picked up again after decades of hiatus. The motivation? Becoming a grandmother for the first time. Besides being able to create adorable outfits for her newborn granddaughter, crocheting has helped her gain a new perspective on work. “Sometimes, after two hours of crocheting, I’ll have a fresher mind to tackle a problem at work.”

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