All the leading supermarkets are planning to boost instore pharmacy numbers following government liberalisation of the licensing regime.
However, there will not be a sudden rush of applications because licences will only be granted automatically to pharmacies open for more than 100 hours a week or those located in shopping centres.
Asda, which has 83 instore pharmacies, estimated it could open at least another 80 in the next five years, while Boots and Sainsbury are understood to be looking at about 50 more each.
However, the 100-hours clause was limiting, argued Asda superintendent pharmacist John Evans. “Most of our pharmacies are open from 8am to 10pm six days plus six hours on Sunday, which is 90 hours. If there were a demand to open longer, we would already be doing it. Obviously, to keep the pharmacy open 100 hours, we’d have to employ more pharmacists.”
Tesco, which has more than 200 instore pharmacies, said the government had been too cautious. Company secretary and corporate affairs director Lucy Neville-Rolfe said: “Requiring new pharmacies to open for 100 hours a week doesn’t make sense because the extra hours between 9pm and midnight are not what most customers want.
“They want more pharmacies open at times that suit them, in convenient locations offering high quality services.”
Asda’s Evans maintains there
is little incentive to offer many important services because pharmacists are paid per item dispensed. He said: “This encourages an emphasis on quantity, not quality.
“Hopefully, the contracts will change in a few months’ time so that we can provide more services like blood pressure screening, diabetes testing and consultations with patients - for the sort of things that people don’t necessarily need to go to their GP over. Pharmacists are not only there to count tablets.”
The partial deregulation would not spell the end of independent pharmacists, he insisted. “In many ways, this makes the whole system fairer. It used to be that licences would go to the highest bidder, because you had to buy an existing business to get your hands on one. So, big supermarkets with deeper pockets had a better chance. That’s no longer the case.”
However, Liberal Democrats health spokesman Paul Burstow, said the new rules threatened the livelihood of independent pharmacies. “Allowing big shopping centres and supermarkets to aggressively recruit more pharmacists will threaten community and hospital pharmacies,” he said.
Elaine Watson