November 18, 2013
  • Rushport Advisory

100 Hour Pharmacy Applications Still Being Approved

Rushport has secured two new 100-hour pharmacy applications for a client almost 15 months after the Regulations were changed to remove the 100-hour exemption.

NHS England initially refused to even consider the applications on the grounds that there was an ‘LPS’ in the relevant neighbourhood but didn’t even tell our client what the Local Pharmaceutical Service was, or where it was being commissioned from. However, NHS England does not have the power to simply refuse to consider an application and we submitted an appeal to the NHSLA on behalf of our client.

During the time it took for the appeal to be considered the LPS ceased being commissioned and we were able to confirm that there were no longer any LPS contracts across the PCT area. One could be forgiven for thinking that the LPS contract was only introduced by the then PCT to block any 100-hour pharmacy applications from being approved, as they decided to stop commissioning the service just after they refused to consider the last of the 100-hour applications.

No doubt there are other people who have received similar letters from NHS England and have chosen to accept that their application had failed, but our client now has two more chances to open new pharmacies and the consent does not expire until 2015.

It looks like 100-hour pharmacies will still be opening for some time to come!