General Update and New Contract News in Exeter
2024 has been something of an odd year for us so far. Typically we se a rush of enquiries in January and then a lot of activity in February and March as new projects come through. This year has been turned on its head and this seems to have been mainly caused by the continued closures of pharmacies owned primarily by multiples and particularly by Boots.
Rushport has been acting for clients for 13 years and in all that time we have never been instructed on as many new contract applications as we are at the moment. Probably 90% of these instructions are due to the last of the Lloyds closures and then the wave of Boots closures. In many cases the Boots closures make little sense on the face ot it and appear to be driven by a pure spreadsheet / profit approach rather than anything else. Pharmacies that were dispensing 12,000 or 13,000 items per month or even more, simply closed down when their lack of profitability was likely due to poor staffing / management.
Unsurprisingly, we have had lots of enquiries about “re-opening” these closed pharmacies. Of course it is not as simple as wanting to re-open as there is a complex and time consuming process to go through, but the sheer volume of applications is quite staggering. In Newcastle alone we are involved in over 20 applications. One location has 8 competing applications.
We are also starting to see the first results of these application come through. In Exeter, Boots closed a health centre based pharmacy that had been busy and where the nearest alternate pharmacy was nearly 1 mile away. Rushport acted for the owner of the nearest pharmacy and despite having to deal with a competing application we were able to secure the new contract for our client and they have already had their premises fit out completed and start providing services in August 2024.
Distance Selling applications typically see heavy activity early in the year, but this year there has been a constant activity throughout the year and into July. We are seeing changes in the approach that clients are taking to DSPs with more of a focus on developing private services as part of their overall offering.
Even though we are only just over half way through 2024 it is clearly going to be the busiest year ever.