An integrated care board (ICB) and GP surgery have issued warnings to patients after unstaffed Jhoots pharmacies have been unable to dispense their medication.
Hull GP surgery Holderness Health has issued an announcement warning patients that “the Thorngumbald branch of Jhoots Pharmacy has been without a pharmacist on-site since February 17”.
“This has meant that the store has been unable to dispense patient medications,” it said.
Read more: Jhooty and the GPs: Employee pins miscarriage on pay stress as staff owed thousands
“The practice is supporting those patients who are affected to nominate another pharmacy to temporarily dispense their medication” – “our dispensary staff are working hard to make sure that affected patients receive their medications”, it added.
And across the country, NHS Devon told C+D earlier this month (April 10) that it was also “aware of the recent temporary closure” of a Jhoots branch in Holsworthy.
Read more: ‘Deeply troubled’: Town mayor demands Jhoots sorts pay ‘issues’
It advised patients that “if a prescription has been sent to a pharmacy that is closed or unable to dispense due to the absence of a pharmacist, it can be returned to the electronic prescription service (EPS) or handed back to the patient by on-site staff”.
Instructing patients to use “another pharmacy to dispense the medication”, it added that they also “have the option to nominate a distance selling pharmacy (DSP)”.
Jhoots did not respond to C+D requests for comment.
Patients “go without meds”
An anonymous Jhoots staff member also yesterday (April 28) told C+D that the number of items dispensed from their pharmacy has plummeted to zero.
They said that while the branch had processed some 7,000 items before Jhoots took it over, it had only processed around 170 items in the first 18 days of March - and has processed none at all this month so far.
They told C+D that without a pharmacist working at the branch, they must “return scripts if any come through”, adding that they were “bored stiff”.
Read more: Staff struggle to feed their kids after Jhoots missed January wages
“What’s worrying me is the people – they’re old people in our little village - having to go out of the village, most of them can’t do it…a lot of them can hardly walk”, they said.
“I know some of them will go without meds,” they added.
Read more: Jhoots accounts: Shareholder funds tumble while debts soar
“We have a community nurse that comes to us for end-of-life meds [and] she’s having to go elsewhere,” they said.
“The thing that I can’t understand is why did [Jhoots] take [the pharmacy] over if they’re not going to run it as a pharmacy, because it’s just not being run as a pharmacy,” they added.
“Failure to pay the rent”
Meanwhile, C+D has learned that bailiffs repossessed another Jhoots Pharmacy branch earlier this month (April 10).
A repossession notice on the door of a Jhoots premises in Cottingham, Yorkshire, said that “re-possession of the…premises/land was secured as a result of [the tenant’s] failure to pay the rent”.
Read more: Jhoots Pharmacy branch receives second bailiff visit in six months
“Do not attempt to break into the premises - if you do so you, you may commit a criminal offence,” the bailiff’s notice added.
In October, another Jhoots Pharmacy in Rainham, Kent, received a bailiff visit just six months after it was repossessed by bailiffs for the first time at its former location.
Jhoots latest
Last month, Jhoots Pharmacy’s financial statements revealed that the company’s shareholder funds took a tumble between 2023 and 2024.
The papers also showed that the company is due to pay creditors back an increasing amount of cash over the next year.
And in February, C+D revealed that Jhoots Chemist Limited’s sole owner Sarbjit Singh Jhooty was embroiled in a pay dispute, the stress of which led one pharmacy staff member to miscarry, she claimed.
Read more: P2U, Jhoots, Enimed: Who made the biggest profits and losses?
A group of 14 locum pharmacists working for Blackbrook, Somerset Bridge and Victoria Park pharmacy told C+D that the branches in question were run by SD Pharmacy - a company owned by “a group of doctors” - when they stopped receiving payment in July 2024.
Jhoots director Sarbjit Jhooty took over SD Pharmacy on September 26 2024 and since then, another four employees at the pharmacies began to have issues receiving wages, sick pay and maternity pay.
At the time, Jhoots said that Jhooty took over the company to secure “the longevity of the pharmacies” but that the “full scale of the debts was not clear” and “the monies owed to pharmacists by SD Pharmacy were for shifts completed prior to [his] ownership”.
Read more: Jhoots Pharmacy disposing of ‘existing branches’ amid £350k annual loss
The issues came after C+D revealed in January that Jhoots pharmacy staff in Hull handed in their notice after a missed January pay-day left them facing eviction and unable to “afford school lunches”.
A week on from pay-day, an anonymous staff member told C+D that they knew of “four stores minimum” in their area that hadn’t received any payment since before Christmas.
And in January, Holsworthy’s town mayor raised the alarm on the “latest issues” at the local Jhoots pharmacy branch, which have seen the town left without its pharmacy services.
The mayor said that the problems included “late payment of wages to staff and no on-site pharmacist”.
