The entrepreneurial pharmacist who was inspired to start her own business

Francesca Aaen is a pharmacist consultant and runs her consultancy called Aaen Care. Aaen Care delivers medicines and healthcare-related training, consultancy and advice to both private and public sector providers of health and social care services across the UK.

Francesca has over the years had a number of NHS roles in care services and also throughout the NHS. She is also a member of the Pharmacy in Practice Editorial Board. In this podcast I asked her the following questions:

• Why did you start your own business?
• You live in Andorra. Do you enjoy running your business from there and do you get home often?
• What was it like to write your first prescriptions?
• What was your experience of working within dementia services?
• What are your views on the rush for everyone to work in general practice?
• What aspect of being an independent prescriber do you think pharmacists will struggle most with?
• Do you think the pharmacists training and supervising pharmacists should be working in practice themselves?
• How did you discover an interest in coaching?
• What is your advice to pharmacists joining the register?
• What does 2020 have in store for you?