It follows concerns raised by employees on “the continuing impact” of Lloydspharmacy’s PMR system, LS Retail, at a quarterly meeting between the company and the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) on October 12.

“The company are aware that system updates have been disruptive,” the multiple and the PDA confirmed in a joint statement released last week (December 6) detailing the key topics covered in the meeting.

It is unclear whether these issues have now been rectified as Lloydspharmacy and LS Retail declined to comment further when approached by C+D.

However, as of October, the multiple was “working on strategies to reduce the impact these have on branch operations”, according to Lloydspharmacy and the PDA.

Feedback would be shared with the relevant teams and any “further developments” would also be communicated to PDA representatives prior to or at the next meeting, they confirmed.

Patient concerns

Introduced to replace the existing 20-year-old dispensing system, Compass, in 2020, the system had already experienced teething troubles, with C+D readers claiming last year that it had been rolled out without adequate training for staff and had been plagued with technical issues and bugs.

Earlier this year in July, patients also raised concerns over the new software’s technical issues, which had allegedly left branches struggling with queues of patients and disgruntled customers.

Read more: Lloydspharmacy pauses rollout of new PMR system in ‘lead up to Christmas’

Lloydspharmacy initially hoped to implement the system across all of its branches in Great Britain by the end of 2021, the multiple previously told C+D.

However, it paused the rollout of LS Retail into any new branches until January 2022, it told C+D in October last year, “due to the usual increase of activity in pharmacies over this period”.

As of July, the system was live in 85% of branches, with Lloydspharmacy aiming “to complete the rollout later this summer”.