100-hour pharmacies will ‘struggle’ to cope with this year’s funding

Do you think it is time to close the 100 hour loop hole? as they are affecting normal pharmacy contract? 9,000 is a big number any sound business without a robust business plan and strategy is deemed to fail. If the 100 hour pharmacy has done it research it may still be able to make a substantial profit as it does not have any acquisitions good will.
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It isn't about protectionism Brian although it is about protecting the pharmacy network, especially in vulnerable areas where a pharmacy offering the same services in a village can be lost due to a "leap frogging" application which bypasses the normal route of need and necessity for a given area.

I understand your role is to offer your services to GPs who want a pharmacy and for certain reasons i.e. necessity, desirability etc due to there being adequate provision as there is are unable to get it via the 40hour route. Only for a 100hour to be placed in there instead and so putting the rest of the pharmacy network surrounding that particular surgery in jeopardy. Do you honestly believe thats a constructive route? Profitable perhaps for yourself and the surgery if they are able to prescribe enough items but being profitable for the prescriber doesn't make it right for the network that makes the provision of medicines work generally in a given area.

Nailesh, I have no "cover", I openly blog and make comments as Brian Austen on the C&D website, identifying myself as representing my own independent consultancy company, EPOC Health Limited, DiabloRX on Twitter and Brian Austen on Linkedin as well as other blog sites. If you want to know more about me see www.epochhealth.com. I fully understand the points made by Dhanoa, which is why it is very rare that I make applications that will encroach on small independents. If I do, I invite them to join with the GPs. I also have my own pharmacy in competition with dispensing GPs. I help pharmacists engage with GPs. I suppose the real point I was trying to make was I do not believe control of entry gives patients the best service available to them. The example of Tesco opening new stores and damaging other stores is often very contentious but the only reason Tesco do so well is that they give the customer what they want. They would not carry on expanding if people did not choose to use them.

Thanks for your reply Brian. My personal opinion is that a 100 hour pharmacy is a big commitment and a commercial decision for who ever decides to use it to open a contract. The staffing costs are on average 3.5 times more than the average 40 hour contract. So to be honest in most occasions don't actually make a lot of financial sense at all.

People are hoping lot would come out of the EPRS2. But honestly, with kind of prescribing habits the GPs have, not releasing prescription on time, wrong drug, wrong dose, are few to mention. Ultimately the patient suffers and relies on the local chemist to lend his/ her medicines till they get their prescription. How many think that the multiples run by locum pharmacists would be able to cope with this demand from patients ??? and how many pharmacies would lend or make emergency supplies to patients who are signed with other chemist ??? The time will tell.

Coming to the economics of 100hr pharmacies, it is a clear case of back biting. The took the easy back door entry surpassing all inhibitions and opened the 100hr pharmacies like mushrooms, eating in to the business of existing pharmacies, only to see this day where there overheads are more than the income. The most benefited pharmacies are those who had solid business plan and got in to GP constoria (giving a share of profits to the GPs) and making sure most of the scripts are dispensed in these pharmacies only. The other 100hr pharmacy sector, where the owner is the pharmacist most of the time, may not have a greater impact compared to those run by locum pharmacists. Overall the impact of the new funding is equally hurting to both 100hr phrmacy as well as a normal pahrmacy, as currently even a 40hr pharmacy is open almost 60-70 hrs to beat the competition and to provided extended opening hours to match the surgery opening hours.