Retail Awards 2021: Essential Retailer of the Year finalists

Old Road News, run by Stephen Hunter, in Bradford

OLD ROAD NEWS

Local newsagents are the heart of the community, never more so than during the pandemic.

Newsagents became the lifeline for a lot of vulnerable and elderly people and when queues formed at supermarkets people turned to small independent stores.

Old Road News is run and owned by Mr Hunter, he proactively increased his home deliveries making sure people stayed connected with local and trusted news and with essential supplies.

Mr Hunter faced supply issues with local wholesalers but instead of giving up he spent hours and hours driving round to make sure he had the stock for his customers.

Throughout the whole pandemic he also made sure no-one went without he personal went out at 5am every morning delivering to his customers before he then went back and opened his shop.

He has run the shop for 33 years and has helped so many families through some of the toughest of times.

He lives and breathes his customers and I think now more than ever he should get recognition for all he does in supporting the community he has served for so long he is a credit to the industry.

Specsavers Shipley/Keighley staff having fun

SPECSAVERS SHIPLEY/KEIGHLEY

Specsavers is an owner-operated franchise optician.

Rajbir Gill is an optometrist that works at Specsavers in Shipley.

On March 23, 2020, the country went into lockdown and businesses closed.

It was closed but still open for urgent or emergency care.

Raj was the only optometrist on the premises as the remaining optometry team had been furloughed.

Most of the opticians in the town were closed and Bradford eye casualty (BRI) were not seeing any patients.

Raj had advised the local GPS that we would still see emergencies, remote care in the first instance and face to face if required (in full PPE).

Although it was important that customers could still get their glasses and contact lenses in this difficult time, which it delivered in abundance, it was the MECS (minor eye conditions service) that it became known for.

Keeping customers and colleagues safe was paramount.

At the beginning it was difficult to source PPE, so the clinics were triaged heavily to determine whether patients needed to attend face to face or whether they could be seen via video call.

It quickly became clear that we would need to see most of them face to face to be able to examine the eyes.

Staff had been furloughed and were anxious, no-one knew what would happen and whether there would be a business for them to return to or whether all the staff would be coming back.

Specsavers set up weekly check in calls to see how the team were doing each week.

This was to keep everyone up to date and relieve anxieties.

And a biweekly video recording went out to explain what the Covid guideline changes meant for us as a business as this was changing rapidly.

After some of lockdown, some of our 50 staff started to return some couldn’t due to being at risk.

So to help with team wellbeing, they would send out funny videos to keep everyone smiling and shine beacon of light in this dark time.

These become more elaborate as time went on and become something everyone looked forward to.

Specsavers were open for care and Raj worked seven days a week covering the Shipley and Keighley practices everyday.

The Bradford practice then had no optometrist and so Raj stepped in to cover all stores seven days a week for the entire 3/12 of lockdown.

Other local Specsavers were only doing tele-consultations and would refer to us anything they thought required further investigation.

They were covering the whole Bradford district area. Patients were being turned from pillar to post in their time of greatest need GP practices were not seeing them.

Some of them attended with sight threatening conditions and some even life threatening conditions.

Just a couple of testimonials are listed below;

Sophie Maddox attended with severe headaches, she was urgently referred for a lumber puncture to reduce intracranial pressure, she was 20 weeks pregnant, this could have been dangerous for her and her baby. The treatment was a success and she now has little baby Hugo who was born in September 2020.

Sheila Bates attended with wet macula degeneration - ‘I felt really alone, and the fact that Specsavers saw me when I was desperate I will never forget’

Robin Spiller attended with metal foreign bodies in his right eye after using a grinder at home.

Raj removed two metal foreign bodies from his eye under a local anaesthetic. He said: ‘I was amazed at how much better it felt immediately, when I walked in I couldn’t open my eyes for the pain, when I walked out I was myself again.’

Susan Bell suddenly developed patches in her left eye vision, she was referred urgently to have sight saving surgery at Bradford Royal Infirmary after she was diagnosed with retinal detachment.

By the summer even young babies, weeks old, were being referred to Specsavers by the local GP. The list goes on; the number of people that have been helped in this difficult time is quite significant.

This amazing Specsavers team took pressure off the heavily burdened hospital clinics, so that they could focus on the pandemic.

Thumbs up from Boots at The Broadway

BOOTS - THE BROADWAY

Boots in The Broadway has been open throughout the pandemic with the team working extremely hard to protect staff and customers from Covid.

The management of the store have ensured all safety measures were put in place.

The pharmacy team, in particular, have gone above and beyond ensuring patients have their medication and making sure the vulnerable and shielding patients were giving deliveries.

A member of the pharmacy team took on the task of the store doing Covid PCR tests for people who need to undertake essential travel throughout the pandemic.

Their pharmacist has also worked between two stores one where he has been doing the Covid vaccination.

As they start the flu season, this team deserve to win an award for all the hard work they do every single day but especially this last 18 months.