DH has seen the error of its ways

100 hour Pharmacies came into being because of pressure from from very large businesses - supermarkets - who had, and still have, direct contact with those who decide things. (A very small number of powerful people at the D of H). They did not come into being because they were a good thing for Pharmacy.

What is the cost of 1000 extra unnecessary Pharmacies? Gary, you asked the question. Have you got the answer?
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I wonder how useful an 100-hour pharmacy can be sometimes, take for example Supermarket pharmacy where it would be open to 10pm at night - it's dead at about 7pm. Does make you wonder...

There is no way that 100 hour pharmacies should be allowed to reduce their hours. They were set up on a spurious premise,and if the business model fails they should go out of business.

History suggests otherwise. Back in the 80s pharmacies opening within 1 kilometre of another pharmacy did not receive a Basic Practice Allowance - which was about £5k - a significant amount at the time.

Pharmacies did open and weren't paid the allowance. Four or five years on and all change BPA was dropped and the new pharmacies were put on the same contract and scale as everyone else.

We shall see.

Martin

From memory, which is not so good these days, the exemptions were introduced as an alternative to scrapping the control of entry requirements all together. Just think what chaos would have been caused by allowing a complete free for all. The 100 hour exemption was not a great way of allowing more competition to drive down prices and somehow improve service levels to the public.

I for one will be sad to see the 100hr rule go since it provides welcomed locum work for myself and other like me provided they were run by supermarket's however as the rule is going , where will all the locums go !
Most i know are having to take full time employment which most do not want but for security which is fair but the outlook does not look good for the new school's of pharmacy students since there is a oversupply of pharmacist's already what will the pharmacists go agian there does not seem to be any joined up thinking maybe there should be a stop any new schools of pharmacy for the next 5 years as well until the job market settles down since if pharmacies are going possibly out of business as well the pharmacy job market will be saturated leading to a downward spiral in pharmacy wages for everyone !
Also i would not rely on new service's falling into pharmacies lap since it will be open market ie any willing provider rule will be the maxim as seen by supermarket's and mutiple's moving into outpatient dispensing where prescriptions dispensed in 15 minutes rather then in 3 hours which is the norm in most hospital pharmacies.

Its all good and fine calling for the 100 hours exemption rule to be scrapped but I also think that all new 40 hours contract should be awarded to independent pharmacies with one or no shops to encourage fairness and provide a route of entry for young pharmacists.