IPF thrashes out member criteria
Defining independent pharmacy is proving difficult for the fledgling Independent
Pharmacy Federation.
A recent meeting of the IPF steering group was unable to agree membership
criteria, other than by excluding pharmacies owned by members of the
Company Chemists Association and the co-operative societies. The position
of pharmacies owned by members of the Association of Independent Multiples
(AIMp) was the subject of some debate.
Noel Baumber said, in a report of the meeting, that potential members
should decide where their loyalties lie and choose between the IPF or
the AIMp. He believed that full AIMp membership was restricted to groups
of 10 or more pharmacies, but that associate membership was available
to all pharmacies. Mark Collins, from Nelson, Lancashire, agreed that
IPF members should not also be AIMp members. But he added that the Pharmaceutical
Services Negotiating Committee’s vice-chairman, Steve Williams,
advocated the role of independents while being AIMp chairman at the same
time.
Mahesh Shah, chief executive of NuCare, which owns 21 pharmacies, said
that NuCare was protective of independent pharmacy ownership, although
it was also an AIMp member company. He said that excluding AIMp members
would reduce the size of the independent sector. In the absence of any
agreement, Allen Tweedie, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, said that the matter
should be left for the future IPF board to decide. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader