Relocation approved after previous refusal
In early 2015 we were contacted by a pharmacy contractor who was trying to relocate their pharmacy next to a new medical centre. The contractor had already been advised by another company, but wanted to change over to Rushport. The first application was approved by NHS England locally, but refused by the NHSLA at appeal. We believed that despite this setback it was possible to make another application and provide different information that would deal with all the reasons that the NHSLA had used for refusing the first application.
The second application took just over 1 year to get to appeal stage and the NHSLA decided to hold an oral hearing before deciding the application. We represented our client at the hearing against several other local contractors who were also professionally represented. This time round the application was approved and our client will be relocating to his new premises in the next few weeks.
This goes to show that sometimes the NHSLA refuses applications because information is considered to be incomplete and they cannot be satisfied on some parts of the regulatory test. Where this happens it is worthwhile considering a second application and not just giving up.