100-hour applications more than double in a year

Being an independant for 25 years it is very distressing to see 100 hour pharmacies being granted contracts to open irrespective of whether there is any need within the area. It gives an open playing field to those who can afford to set it up with no regard for existing pharmacies who have worked hard to set up successful businesses just to see their lives going down the tubes. I am all for competition but not manipulation.
We are all trying to claw back our lost income due to Category M cuts in the way of services which is stressful enough but then to worry about 100 hour pharmacies is enough to put anyone off with regards to carrying on practising as responsible pharmacists.

this debate has been rambling on for too long 20 years + nothing has been done contractors are no longer pharmacists they contractors are over represented at national negotiatons and it is there agenda always represented not the grass roots pharmacists.The national leaders assume pharmacists are naive at best that is why there are exploited by contractors i for one would back a campaign Back to Basics -Dispensing/counselling role we have always had as our own.Not the tick box ,paper shredding ,files bigger than the coffee machine role handed to us by our supposed representatives.

I suppose that is the free maket and there will be winners and losers. It may mean more job opportunities for pharmacists in the short to medium term and most of the 100 hour contracts are independents particularly younger pharmacists.

One enterprising co-owner duo do 50 hours to cover their own store and have a full time job on top locuming and one as relief for a multiple. So I suppose the situation is more complex than on first assessment.

Indeed, this may be the only feasible low cost entry opportunity many young entrpreneureal pharmacists get to own their own pharmacy. Whoever you all are...Good luck!

If people want to open pharmacies then it is their personal choice in doing so. They are not breaking the law, they are working within the permissible framework which was defined by the very people who now criticise them for doing so. Existing independents have a hard time competing with these new pharmacies but once upon a time these same independents provided competition for other pharmacies which existed before they did. The wheel of time turns, the 'aggressor' becomes the 'victim', and so forth - this is the natural balance playing itself out. Did we think the business world was such an easy thing that we could take other people's customers but nobody would ever come to take ours?

I always think if pharmacy open until midnight?

Should GP practice/nurses and dentists do the same? Why pharmacy always the odd ones out?

Should other healthcare professionals such as GP practices/nurses/dentists operate 100 hours service as well?

Why pharmacists always the odd ones out?

93.8 per cent of the applications made in 2010-11 were granted, hence approx 24 were not

Does anyone know of the 6.2% of 100 hour contracts that were not granted and for what reason?