Some 3,400 staff based in its Nottingham headquarters – including any Boots pharmacists working in support functions – are eligible to apply for voluntary redundancy during a one-week period beginning on November 28, the health and beauty giant told C+D today (October 11).

"Store-based" pharmacists are not affected by the redundancy plans, it stressed.

"[Eligible staff] include pharmacists who are no longer working in a store environment, but have developed their careers by moving into support-based roles," a spokesperson for Boots said.

This might include pharmacists working in HR, pharmacy services proposition work and operations, they added.

Boots announced last June that it would cut 700 jobs in the UK – which it anticipated would be made up of staff working in its HR, finance, marketing, trading and operations teams – from 2017.

The plans would allow the multiple to invest more money in technology, such as its dispensing hub, it said at the time.

The job losses form part of parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance's global plans to restructure the company in a bid to save £1 billion.

Walgreens assured staff when it bought Boots in 2014 that the takeover would not lead to any job losses.