Duchess of Cornwall meets frontline pharmacists in Uckfield

She also met with pharmacy staff from local branches of Kamsons Pharmacy, as well as the owners and some of the head office and warehouse staff.

The Duchess heard about the unprecedented demand for prescription delivery during the last year and how every branch of Kamsons Pharmacy had remained open throughout the pandemic, despite the additional pressures they faced.

Bharat Chotai, Director of Kamsons Pharmacy, said: “We were delighted to welcome the Duchess of Cornwall and she took a genuine interest in our staff who have continued to serve their local populations throughout the last year in extremely difficult circumstances.

“We are also very proud of the loyalty of our staff and are delighted that their contribution has been recognised by Her Royal Highness.”

The Duchess of Cornwall was then given a tour of Kamsons’ new state-of-the-art warehouse, where ‘weasel’ robots are being used to transport medicines across the warehouse.

Kamsons Pharmacy is the first pharmaceutical warehouse in the country to implement this technology.

Moving from a manual to an automated system has allowed the capacity of the warehouse to increase to delivering a million units of stock to the pharmacies each month.

Graeme Nott, Warehouse Manager, then explained to Her Royal Highness that the warehouse has been covered in 925 solar panels which are used to power some of the vehicles that deliver medicines to the pharmacies and directly to patients as part of Kamsons Pharmacy’s drive towards becoming carbon neutral.