Select committee resists store pharmacy plans

The Commons health select committee has opposed plans to lift restrictions on supermarket chains providing pharmacy services, and says primary care trusts must retain the ability to plan them.

In January, the Office of Fair Trading issued a report recommending that restrictions on where new pharmacies could open should be removed.But pharmacists fear that deregulation would see thousands of high street stores go under if forced to compete with in-store supermarkets pharmacies.This week the health committee agreed.Chair David Hinchliffe said: 'We are not convinced by the economic and competition arguments relied on by the OFT.Any reforms of the regulatory framework should be in close concert with the negotiations of a new payment system for pharmacies currently being carried out by the Department (of Health) and must take account of the wider role of pharmacies within the fibigger pictureflof the NHS and of this country's health needs, which we feel the OFT report has singularly failed to do.'