December 12, 2014
  • Rushport Advisory

Rushport secures new 40 hour pharmacy contract in a growing town in Cheshire

Rushport is pleased to announce that we have just secured permission to open a new 40 hour pharmacy in Cheshire East. The application was originally refused by NHS England, but the NHSLA clearly had doubts about how NHS England had considered the application and decided to hold an oral hearing.

One of our partners (Conor Daly) attended the oral hearing to give evidence in support of granting the contract and we also engaged a specialist planner to support the case. Two things became very clear at the hearing. Firstly, NHS England had relied on material that was completely out of date when they made their original assessment of the application and secondly, NHS England had failed to properly understand the meaning of ‘reasonable choice’ in relation to Regulation 18.

We were able to demonstrate that granting the contract would secure improvements and better access to pharmaceutical services that were not considered at the time that the PNA was written and that NHS England was wrong to decide that there was already a reasonable choice within the Health and Wellbeing Board Area.