An NHS board's rejection of a pharmacy application in a Scottish village shows that patients in remote areas are being denied easy access to pharmaceutical care, an independent pharmacy chain has claimed.

Apple Pharmacy, which owns 12 stores in Scotland, said its inability to open a branch in Castletown, Caithness highlighted that there were still patients in some areas having to wait for an appointment at a dispensing practice before they could receive pharmaceutical care.

Apple Pharmacy's application was unanimously refused by NHS Highland last month, where the board ruled that the business had failed to prove the area had inadequate services.

Apple Pharmacy said its failure to win a contract in the Scottish village of Castletown, Caithness, meant some patients were still having to wait for an appointment before they could receive pharmaceutical care	More on pharmacy in Scotland Contractors won't lose out under new payment scheme, insists CPS Pharmacy approvals at risk in rural Scotland, warns RPS Contractors welcome community views
	NHS Highland acknowledged that there were no pharmaceutical services in Castletown, but said there was a "complete lack of support" for a pharmacy in the village. Patients could "easily access" pharmacies in the neighbouring town of Thurso, six miles away, the committee said.

But Apple Pharmacy CEO Sanjay Majhu told C+D last week (April 10) that it was a "disgrace" there was no pharmacy in the area surrounding Castletown, as patients had no choice but to visit one of the two dispensing GP practices to receive their medicines and other health services.

Mr Majhu said he had not expected to win the application but wanted to draw attention to the fact that patients in areas of Scotland without a pharmacy did not have immediate access to certain health services.

"Doctors have an appointment system [while] pharmacies have a non-appointment system. The whole point of the pharmacy contract is about giving people access to pharmaceutical healthcare," Mr Majhu said.

He told NHS Highland that the village had a "significant transient population" who passed through Castletown from more remote parts of the Highlands to access the GP surgery. The practices dispensed 7,000 items a month between them and Mr Majhu believed he could take over 40 per cent of these prescriptions without negatively impacting the GPs' business.

GP Hercules Robinson, who represented the dispensing practices at the committee meeting, said they would not be able to operate "in the form currently offered" if a pharmacy opened in the area. "The addition of extra pharmacy services to patients will be significantly outweighed by the loss of other services to patients," he told the committee.

The practices already offered services including contraception, nicotine replacement therapy, minor ailments, immunisation, travel vaccinations and medicine reviews. Routine appointments usually had a waiting time of "less than 48 hours", with some extra appointments available each day, he said.

A petition launched by a patient against the pharmacy application received 5,515 signatures.

In December, the Scottish government recommended that pharmacy applications in remote rural areas would have to undergo a "prejudice test" to show they would not adversely affect any dispensing doctors already operating in the area, as part of a consultation on control of entry arrangements.

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