The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7239 p332-333
8 March 2003

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Letters to the Editor

Supermarket pharmacy

Supermarkets are not the right places to practise pharmacy

From Mr J. V. Tapster, MRPharmS

I have read with disbelief the conclusions of the Office of Fair Trading report. As with so many similar reports, the conclusions are based on the worship of Mammon and the words profit and (theoretical) cost savings. No mention is made of patient care, which should have been the most important aspect of the report.

After a career spent in pharmacy, 30 years as an independent community pharmacist, my eyes have been opened in the past six years, since I retired, by my experiences as a locum. This role has taken me into many different types of pharmacy — large, medium and small multiples, sole independents, of varying sizes, and also those operating within supermarkets. It is this last group which will proliferate should this report be accepted by the Government to the undoubted detriment not only of our profession but also, more importantly, of the general public, by the enforced closure of many small independents that would inevitably ensue.

My experience has proved to me, unequivocally, that the supermarket or out-of-town store is the least satisfying environment in which pharmacy is currently operating. The premises are usually clinically sterile, the ambience unattractive, the senior management smug and arrogant and their customers frustrated, impatient, demanding and ungrateful. Working regularly for a time at one particular supermarket, I rarely saw the same customers more than once. It did not take me long to realise that it was not the right place to practise pharmacy and I then refused to work in that environment. Furthermore I now consider any pharmacist who does is misguided and letting down the profession. The supermarket day is spent endlessly entering the details of new patients' records — patients one is most unlikely to meet again — and trying to advise patients on their medication. This can be a thankless task for one usually has no way of knowing how long they have been on their current drugs and advice is often rebuffed or received with little grace. It is also galling, and not a little frustrating, to watch customers by-passing the pharmacy with over-the-counter medicines (on special offer?) picked up from the general sale list section situated nowhere near the pharmacy, which could well be inappropriate for them and which they are intending to pay for at the general check-out exit.

My former pharmacy, in a village, had around a dozen different doctors whose prescriptions required to be sorted separately and a relatively small bundle of "miscellaneous" ones. The supermarkets, on the other hand, would have relatively few doctors with separate files and a huge "miscellaneous" file with fewer than 20 prescriptions from each doctor, which reinforces my point that the customers generally had no loyalty.

The neighbourhood community pharmacy is unquestionably the right environment in which to practise our profession. Senior citizens, who generate the largest proportion of the prescriptions that are dispensed, prefer the service, attention and care they get from their local pharmacists, who are often prepared to help them over and above the call of duty for no financial reward. How many supermarket pharmacists would be prepared (or allowed) to be called out in the middle of the night to dispense an antibiotic required for a sick child?

Let us face it, in the final analysis the smug supermarket bullies are only in the business for the financial rewards they can get out of it, both for themselves and their shareholders. We must fight with all our might to ensure that the OFT recommendation is not adopted.

John Tapster
Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire

Pharmacy image not enhanced by supermarkets

From Mr J. M. Brunt, MRPharmS

The point that some members who express support for supermarket pharmacies seem to miss is the harmful effect that they have on local competition. One has only to look around to see what has happened to independent butchers, grocers, greengrocers, bakers and petrol stations in most communities to realise that supermarkets, either by design or otherwise, successfully demolish the opposition.

Whatever makes anyone think that the same fate does not await community pharmacy if these semi-monopolies are allowed to have their way? In any case pharmacies ideally need to provide an ambience of quiet, professional confidentiality which is certainly not available in any supermarket I know.

I am at a loss to know why any of our membership wish to work in such downmarket surroundings as food stores. It may enhance the image of grocery but does nothing to that of pharmacy.

Mike Brunt
Thetford, Norfolk

A strange request for shorter hours

From Mr P. A. McCree

Lincolnshire Local Pharmaceutical Committee has recently been asked to comment on an application by Tesco to reduce its contracted opening hours.

The application, from its pharmacy operations manager, begins: "Following a number of successful appeals regarding our contractual hours we have taken the decision to standardise these across our business. In future our contractual hours will be Monday to Saturday 9.00 to 13.00 and 14.00 to 17.30." The company then advises that it is giving eight weeks' notice of this intention.

In the light of the Office of Fair Trading report, which advocated supermarkets' longer opening hours as being a significant advantage and reason for deregulation, I find the timing of this strange — the letter was dated 31 January, after the report.

I wonder if Tesco would like to explain and whether members of Parliament and the Government would be interested.

Peter McCree
Chairman
Lincolnshire Local Pharmaceutical Committee

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