What's the story... of the Tobermory Pharmacy?

The picturesque Isle of Mull is on the west coast of Scotland. A small community of 3,500 people live on the island, which is famous as the location of children’s TV show Balamory. And the only pharmacy on the island is for sale...
What's the story... of the Tobermory Pharmacy?
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The picturesque Isle of Mull is on the west coast of Scotland. A small community of 3,500 people live on the island, which is famous as the location of children’s TV show Balamory. 

There is only one pharmacy on the island, in Tobermory town centre, and it’s been owned by pharmacist Julie Walker since 2016.  

“It’s a wonderful place to ply a trade,” she says. “It’s like going back in time. You get to know your community and all the ins and outs”.

Read more: Podcast: What female pharmacists of the past can teach the industry today

But in 2020, Walker, who is 66, decided to sell. “It was time for me to retire," she says.  

It hasn’t been an easy process. The pandemic caused chaos, and it came off the market in 2021 before going back on the market in late 2023.

And the current pressures of the community pharmacy market have been exacerbated by the remote location.  

Getting support from pharmacists has proven difficult when Walker can’t work, she says, with emergency locums costing around £10k for three weeks work. 

Read more: Sharp rise in pharmacists seeking support

“If I were taken ill suddenly, there’s nobody who can come and keep this place going”, she worries. “I do have an emergency plan, but I didn’t anticipate how much some of the locums are charging”. 

Another “major problem on the island is accommodation. People who have applied for jobs here have been given the job and then couldn't take it because they can't get accommodation,” she says.  

"Lifeline" for locals

Walker has good relationships with the NPA, the GPhC, and local health board, who she sought help to deal with how isolated her pharmacy is, but they haven’t been able to “do anything immediately”. 

“It can't just be me in a remote and rural pharmacy that this type of thing happens to, right?” she says. 

It’s a "lifeline" for locals as trips to the nearest pharmacies in Oban and Fort William are over 30 and 60 miles away respectively, and the ferries are “really erratic” to get there,” she says. 

Read more: Exclusive: Meet The Apprentice’s pharmacist Amina Khan

However, in January 2023. a fellow pharmacist she had known for years put an offer to buy the pharmacy business and the property.

A couple of months later she started working there to support Walker with the demands of the pharmacy. “She didn’t ask for a fee, I just paid for her accommodation – she’s a good pharmacist”, says Walker.  

As she believed the sale was going to plan, she gave notice to leave her rental and moved to South Shields to live with her daughter in June 2023.  

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But the sale fell through when her pharmacist friend couldn’t get the money together, and she had to move back in August 2023 – where she had her own struggles with the rental market.  

“Everywhere was full, so I thought I’m going to have to sleep on a mattress in the back of the shop”, she says. She moved around rental properties for months and says rental costs were “horrendous”. 

For now, she is carrying on running the pharmacy. “I don't take a full pharmacist wage, because if I did the business would be gone in a few months,” she says.

But she insists she "will have to work here until it changes hands. And it’s still on the market.”

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