It’s been a very busy and successful month or so for us with sales transactions completing and various NHS contract applications being approved.
A brief summary of these recent success stories are as follows:
Pharmacy Sales
South Manchester
We recently completed the retirement sale of a long-established high dispensing community pharmacy in the Stockport area to a local operator who runs several pharmacies in and around Manchester. As per the owners’ instructions, the pharmacy was sold on a strictly confidential basis without the need for advertising and remained confidential until the point where all parties were comfortable to notify the staff. We wish the purchasers every success going forwards and our clients a long and happy retirement.
Avon
PSC have just completed another retirement sale of a standard hour community pharmacy close to Bristol city centre. The pharmacy was sold to a local competitor who saw the opportunities/potential of owning two pharmacies close together. The freehold property which has potential development opportunities formed part of the sale. We wish all parties involved the very best with their individual plans.
London
Acting for a joint venture partner in a health centre pharmacy in central London PSC recently brokered the sale of a 50% shareholding in the business to an established small pharmacy group based in and around London. The new owners have now gone into partnership with the co-located GPs and expect to grow the business substantially by using their expertise to maximise the private services business in this affluent area.
Consolidations
Suffolk
Acting on behalf of a long standing client PSC successfully handled the consolidation of two pharmacies into one. Our client owned a 100 hour contract along with a second standard hour contract within an attractive town centre. Acting on instructions, we applied to merge the 100 hour pharmacy with the standard hour contract, resulting in our clients now operating one very high dispensing community pharmacy trading standard hours Monday-Saturday whilst reducing their overheads by closing the 100 contract.
Cambridgeshire
In a similar vein to the Suffolk application, our client instructed us apply for a consolidation of his 100 hour pharmacy to a standard hours contract which is situated along the same street. The standard hour contract had recently relocated to its current site (also handled by PSC) and had been refitted with the consolidation in mind. The application has been approved and our client is proposing to physically carry out the consolidation early in June. The outcome will be a high dispensing standard hour pharmacy opposite a substantial GP surgery.
Pharmacy Access Scheme (PhAS)
Towards the end of last year pharmacy owners were given the opportunity to review the decision by NHS England not to include their pharmacy on the Pharmacy Access Scheme list. Certain critical criteria had to be met for the application to be successful and applications had to follow a strict process within tight deadlines.
PSC submitted several applications on behalf of clients to be included within the PhAS. At the time of preparing this document only one of those applications has been processed and we are delighted to say it has been approved.
The application in question is in North Yorkshire and was originally established as a new pharmacy contract in 2017. It has since become an essential part of the community. Whilst the pharmacy did not meet all requirements to qualify for the PHAS scheme, PSC argued that various physical feature anomalies made it very difficult for local residents to access the other pharmacies in area and NHS England agreed.
Our client will now benefit from the additional financial support it will receive from the PhAS making it a profitable pharmacy thus ensuring it will provide the local community with essential healthcare over the coming years.
Relocations
Acting on behalf of a client in Greater London, PSC submitted an application for a ‘no significant change relocation’ to premises within the same retail parade. Whilst the distance of the relocation was only very short, it was still necessary to prepare a comprehensive and detailed application setting out how the application was compliant with the relevant regulations. We have recently been notified that this application has been approved and there have been no appeals submitted by other local pharmacy contractors.
There have been numerous cases where relocation applications have been refused, not because the distance is too great but because the applicant has failed to give sufficient information to comply with the regulatory tests. In our opinion it is critical for any pharmacy owner who wishes to submit a relocation application to take professional advice so that the risk of refusal is minimised.
