‘Unopposed’ rural pharmacy sold to first-time buyers after fetching multiple bids  An “unopposed” pharmacy in a rural Welsh village that attracted lots of interest from potential buyers has been sold, specialist broker Hutchings has announced.  Revealed: The full shortlist for the C+D Awards 2023  C+D has revealed the full shortlist for its sixteenth annual awards, taking place in London on September 6.   What can England's community pharmacists learn from their international peers?  A trip away has Beth Kennedy thinking about what community pharmacists in England could learn from international models of pharmacy  And the winner is... C+D unveils your new Xrayser  C+D readers voted in their droves for the writer they wanted to become the next anonymous community pharmacy blogger Xrayser.  

Community pharmacy in England is currently wrestling with the worst crisis of its professional history. We must act to save our local pharmacies, our futures and our sectors’s relevance to society and the NHS. Our pharmacies are being undermined and starved of funding, this is irresponsible and the consequences are reckless to the public and to a sector that has given far more than it’s ever taken.  It is time for us all to stand together. No one in community pharmacy can afford to miss this event. To this effect I am inviting you to attend an emergency webinar on Tuesday 25th April at 7.30pm. We will be joined by the Chair of APPG and Member of the Parliament Taiwo Owatemi and experts, and of course you. Several Parliamentarian will also tune in to listen. We strongly suggest that all pharmacy contractors invite their local MP to this webinar. I want to rally you all to subscribe and understand our plans and next steps. It is important we reach beyond organisations, trade associations, pharmacy politics, and focus this once on community pharmacy.  If you are planning to attend the webinar please register here and the login will be sent to you in the coming days before the webinar. 

Boots UK’s parent company has given prospective bidders until May 16 to submit their final offers for the multiple, Sky News has reported. The news outlet reported today (April 26) that Walgreens Boots Alliance’s advisers at Goldman Sachs have notified bidders of the mid-May deadline for formal offers. Asda’s owners – billionaire Issa brothers and TDR Capital – and the asset management company Apollo Global Management are expected to put forward final offers for the UK community pharmacy chain, Sky News reported. However, the outlet claimed that the multiple is expected to receive “fewer than a handful of bids” by the given deadline. This is due to some parties being put off by the asking price set by Boots’ parent company and “the backdrop of inflation and other cost pressures expected to hamper Boots' near-term financial performance”, Sky News reported. What do you think of the latest Boots sale news? Are you keeping up with it? Are you surprised the multiple has only received a handful of bids? 

Despite the five-year funding deal promising to give contractors some stability and the ability to plan for their move to a more service-led business, PSNC's new CEO Janet Morrison admits there are “challenges” with having five years of flat funding. A rethink of the contract’s length might be on the cards, Ms Morrison suggested in an interview with C+D. Is a five-year contract still working for community pharmacy? |Chemist+Druggist :: C+D (chemistanddruggist.co.uk) PSNC chief: Low-scale, low-volume schemes impede pharmacy’s move to service-led model|Chemist+Druggist :: C+D (chemistanddruggist.co.uk) What do you think? Are you in favour of having a multi-year funding contract? How long should that be? Share your thoughts below

"If someone enters into a contract, it is legally binding", David Reissner - chair of the Pharmacy Law & Ethics Association - wrote in a blog for C+D. While examples have been shared of instances where both locums and pharmacy contractors have failed to keep to the agreed hourly rate, contractors have told C+D they are now considering some options following reports of a minority of locums’ “tactics” to obtain higher rates.  What is your experience? Are locums keeping to their rate agreement? And vice versa, are contractors keeping to theirs?

So some of the multiples have decided to cut opening hours of some of their branches . This is to address the increase of the minimum wage . There is already a shortage of pharmacist locum cover and now so many more pharmacist managers will quit . There are rumours of locum pay being £50 an hour while pharmacist managers earn half this amount and are expected to do so much more to hit targets . I no longer feel loyal to the company but I do still feel loyal to the community I serve . I can only see more temporary pharmacy closures .

A reminder of the findings so far: Revealed: The average salaries, work-life balance, and job satisfaction of primary care pharmacistshttps://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/CD135858/Revealed-The-average-salaries-worklife-balance-and-job-satisfaction-of-primary-care-pharmacists Pharmacy teams flag staffing level concerns amid mounting workloadshttps://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/CD135857/Pharmacy-teams-flag-staffing-level-concerns-amid-mounting-workloads Revealed: The average pharmacist branch manager salary across the UK in 2021https://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/CD135862/Revealed-The-average-pharmacist-branch-manager-salary-across-the-UK-in-2021 Average salary of non-manager pharmacists decreased by more than £600 in 2021https://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/CD135860/Average-salary-of-non-manager-pharmacists-decreased-by-more-than-600-in-2021 Does the above ring true for you? How has the past year been for you? Share your experiences and thoughts below, and look out for more coverage in the coming weeks.