The High Court has overturned for the second time a Family Health Services Appeals Authority decision to allow a new pharmacy contract at Cropwell Bishop, Nottinghamshire.
In November, 1997, the FHSAA ruled that the Snowden-James pharmacy group could open a pharmacy in the village, but the decision was overturned by the High Court in May, 1999, and the authority was ordered to reconsider the application. At the end of September, last year, it reconsidered the case and again allowed the pharmacy application. The High Court has now struck down that decision, ruling it unlawful, and has urged the FHSAA to appoint a new panel to reconsider the case.
On June 20, Mrs Justice Smith, said that the FHSAA had erred in law when it had considered the adequacy of dispensing services provided to local people by an existing dispensing medical practice. She granted the authority leave to take the case to the Court of Appeal.
She said that interpreting the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 1992 had, in the past, given rise to a plethora of legal disputes and that guidance on the issue was needed from the Appeal Court.