Behind the counter: Wellington Pharmacy, Somerset

It’s been nine months since Allied Pharmacies took over 129 Jhoots pharmacies.

It was a lot to take on, with some premises threatened with having their contracts taken away because of their lack of business.

Allied told C+D in February it “will not close any” of the ex-Jhoots pharmacies it had purchased last year. Earlier this month it said the priority at the time was to reopen all the pharmacies.

One of Allied’s ex-Jhoots branches closed in June after seeing seen “extremely low volumes of prescriptions”, and six have been sold to different contractors over the last four months.

A ‘win’

But part of Allied’s model is that it went into partnerships for some of its branches with other contractors.

One of them is just under 30 miles south of the coastal Somerset town of Minehead, the ex-Jhoots branch that Allied closed in June.

Allied opened Wellington Pharmacy in early March, and the Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton and Wellington Gideon Amos was there to celebrate the opening.

Read more: Behind the counter: Penclawdd Pharmacy, Wales

Amos told his fellow MPs in a Westminster debate on community pharmacy that Allied Pharmacies opening in the ex-Jhoots premises was “a fantastic win for the community” and it came from the “result of sustained community pressure”.

The MP and Wellington Pharmacy Action Group’s (WPAG) campaigned for more pharmacies in Wellington after a Boots branch closed in February 2024, followed by the Jhoots branch in 2025.

WPAG is still campaigning for a fourth to open to compliment the town’s Boots and Superdrug pharmacies, and the new Allied pharmacy.

C+D visited the Allied’s part-owned Wellington Pharmacy to find out how it’s been going since reopening five months ago.

From locum to owner

One of the part-owners with Allied is pharmacist Basil Doudin. Originally from Birmingham, he graduated from Aston University in 2022 and spent his career locuming across the country in independent community pharmacies.

It’s the first pharmacy he has owned or part-owned, and after moving nearby, he likes coming into the pharmacy every day knowing what he’s walking into.

“With locuming, you don’t know how it was the day before,” he tells C+D. “There’s a lot more stability for patients. It’s nice to have a regular face for patients. You can manage your workload a lot better. That continuity, you can’t really replace it.”

Read more: Behind the counter: Charles Michie’s Pharmacy, Aberdeen

His business partner is Nikhil Koria, who works as the NHS contracts lead for Healthcare Plus, as well as working across other pharmacies. “My expertise is identifying sites, opening new pharmacies and transitioning into operating,” he tells C+D.

Doudin is front-of-house as the pharmacist, while Koria deals with the administration and operations. Allied deal with wholesaling and getting stock in for the pharmacy.

Read more: Behind the counter: Pharmacy+Health, Harrogate

The pair were introduced through another locum Koria knew when he was looking for a partner to open Wellington Pharmacy.

“We managed to open everything within a month,” says Koria. Doudin adds: “It was quite quick. There was a massive need for something here. Allied wanted to get things running as quick as possible.”

Opening

There were some fundamental obstacles to overcome initially though. “We didn’t know where the key was for the pharmacy, and there was no internet,” says Koria, adding that the local integrated care board (ICB) were “on our backs” to open or have the contract removed.

One of Jhoots’ staff members joined the new pharmacy, while new staff were recruited to the small team. The pharmacy will start offering free deliveries once it hires a new driver for its car.

Read more: Behind the counter: Malmesbury Pharmacy, Wiltshire

Doudin saw what the pharmacy had been like after researching online, and saw there was “a lot of work to turn around the reputation of Jhoots”.

Additionally, there was “a lot of load” on the Boots and Superdrug pharmacies in Wellington after he’d seen pictures of queues coming out their doors.

“In the first month, it was getting the systems running. But there weren’t so many targets for growth straight away, but more to make sure everything works,” he said.

Leafletting

Located a short walk from Wellington’s high street behind the now closed down Luson Surgery, Wellington Pharmacy perhaps has the best car park a pharmacy could hope for.

About half the size of a football pitch, Doudin knows it’s a key advantage for patients compared to the Boots and Superdrug on the high street.

And the pharmacy is the closest to the town’s only GP surgery, Wellington Medical Centre, which took on the patients from the Luson Surgery when it closed last September.

Read more: Behind the counter: Humberston Pharmacy, Grimsby

Doudin says building the relationship up with the GP surgery has helped increase footfall and spread the word around town, even if the first month was “pretty slow as expected”.

“We’ve been working with the doctors closely here who have been really helpful,” says Koria. “We leafletted every house by hand, generally after hours, and done Royal Mail leaflet drops.” The pharmacy has huge banners and signs outside the front of Luson Surgery too.

“It’s been a lot of late nights,” says Koria. “It’s been steady but there’s still a long way to go here but people are very happy with the service.”

Trust

The pair say the pharmacy is now doing around 5,000 items per month, but Koria warns “it’s hard winning trust back”.

“People will just not come back for the fact they associate the building with Jhoots. If you mess around with a patient’s medication once, they don’t tend to come back. It’s unfortunate, but those who have come back have been very happy.”

Doudin estimates 80% of its patients did come to Jhoots previously, and the GP surgery is “pushing a lot of work our way”. But he’s mindful that some of the Somerset town “aren’t aware we’re open”, still.

Read more: ‘Pragmatic’: Allied Pharmacies sells six ex-Jhoots branches

It’s something MP Amos is acutely aware of. He tells C+D that “the failure of Jhoots had a significant impact on Wellington, leaving the town with two overwhelmed pharmacies”.

“I was therefore delighted when Allied took over the former Jhoots site and wish them well as they find their feet and restore trust following the failures that preceded them,” he added.

Campaigning

But Amos told his fellow MPs back in June just how overwhelmed Wellington’s remaining pharmacies became, as they struggled to meet the demands of the 17,000 residents.

“Queues that were 15 people deep formed, Boots completely failed to scale up to meet the challenge, medicines were not ordered in time and patients became anxious,” he said at the time.

WPAG founder Roger Tozer started campaigning for more pharmacies in Wellington in October, following his own personal struggles getting access to medication.

Read more: ‘Extremely low volumes’: Allied Pharmacies shuts Somerset branch

“I used to spend nearly every day in a queue, whichever pharmacy I went into Wellington,” he tells C+D. “I spoke to one lady in the queue, and she was waiting three days for her drugs. She was told ‘you’ll have to come back later’ and she burst into tears, as her husband needed the medication because he was at home dying.

“You could see the staff getting upset, and it shouldn’t be like this.”

He started campaigning to address the issues and is putting pressure on Somerset’s Health and Wellbeing Board to provide a supplementary statement to reassess the town’s circumstances following the Boots closure in 2024.

Read more: Inside the deal for Allied and Jhoots Pharmacy

He says the pharmaceutical needs assessment (PNA) that was published in October for 2025-28 was “inaccurate” as it listed Jhoots as an active pharmacy. Amos told MPs the PNA “seems to be fundamentally flawed”.

Tozer is campaigning for a fourth pharmacy to open, particularly to help with an increased demand from a new housing development close to Wellington.

Doudin doesn’t think it’s necessary. “Because there is only one medical centre in town, we think the three pharmacies could cope.”

Services

Tozer does admit Wellington Pharmacy has “changed the situation” and hears positive feedback from fellow residents.

“As far as I’m concerned, all I need to see is that it’s operating and people walking through the door and queues in Boots and Superdrug are going down to reasonable levels,” he says. “If it closes, it’s going to be worrying for the people.”

Read more: Big interview: Allied Pharmacies - ‘We were getting a little bored, now we have a project to fix’

While things have been going steady, Doudin wants to see more services come under the NHS. He is now pushing more private services in his pharmacy.

“We are offering the weight loss service, got travel options and hair loss as well. Weight loss is the main one at the moment. Hearing loss was asked for by patients and also phlebotomy.”

Cashflow

Koria is realistic about the challenges the pharmacy faces and is keen to drive up the number of scripts Wellington Pharmacy does.

“I can’t stress how tough it is to open one,” he says. “It’s been good and a big learning experience.

“Opening a pharmacy from scratch, you build from the bottom and get a great understanding of not just how you run, but also how your suppliers operate as well. They’ll stress test you more than they would in an operating pharmacy.”

Read more: Exclusive: Allied went into Jhoots deal ‘blind’, says CEO

He says one of the “big issues” in pharmacy is cashflow, with the advance payment coming in on the twelfth of the month. “We have to wait for payment and that is a big cashflow hit.”

And wholesalers ask for payment upfront which is another “big cashflow burden”, and the pharmacy had difficulties when it reopened.

“Wholesalers ask ‘how many items are you doing?’ And we say ‘zero’ and they say, ‘we’re not going to give you any credit’. So, it’s why opening an ex-Jhoots is so difficult.”

Cuts and IP

Outside of challenges for Wellington Pharmacy, Koria believes the lack of funding in the sector is very unappealing to the new generation of community pharmacists who want to open a pharmacy.

And the government cuts to ICBs have left pharmacies in the dark on what will happen and adding to “pharmacies becoming difficult to run”.

He thinks business rates cuts would help the sector. “GP surgeries don’t pay any, why should pharmacies? That does make a real difference.”

Read more: Peter Cattee: ‘We’ve parked problems, now they need solving’

Doudin wants to do his independent prescribing (IP) training but has concerns on their funding and implementation.

“The new IP ones are funded at the same level that PGDs are, but there’s a lot more liability that comes with prescribing. We need clarity on what the plan is.

“How is it going to be put into services and not just feel like it’s being tagged on a little bit? With the prescribing services, how is that beneficial over a PGD? What is that IP qualification in that service that a PGD can’t do?”

Doudin says any uplifts in the latest contract have been offset by inflation, wages rising, and even recent changes such as the tightening of hypertension service rules. “Any uplift gets eaten up so quickly, so you’re not much better off than the previous contract.”

Support

While Wellington Pharmacy continues to settle in, WPAG’s Tozer continues to campaign for a fourth pharmacy to be introduced. In September, he is appearing in front of Somerset Council’s Adults, Health and Housing Scrutiny Committee and submitted a public question for the next council meeting to address the issue.

MP Amos tells C+D he agrees with WPAG that the town “will likely need a fourth pharmacy to keep up with population growth”, as well as calling for “more scrutiny of the PNA process”.

Read more: ‘It’s not the government’s job to make pharmacy owners happy’

Compared to his time locuming, Doudin notices that locals give a lot more respect to the pharmacies, perhaps a reaction to the improved pharmacy provision available. “Here, in Wellington, we’re appreciated but I’ve seen it in places where people don’t appreciate pharmacy as much.”

He’s keen to grow the pharmacy as much as possible, and Koria’s pleased patients come in and praise the pharmacy for their services.

But he’s still cautious about its prospects.

“I feel settled, things are stabilised. But we do encourage people to support your local pharmacy. If you don’t support us now, we might not be here to help.”