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Ask your pharmacist what? Ask them if they’ve done their Christmas shopping yet? Perhaps you would like to buy someone you love a once in a lifetime gift? How about a pharmacy? No, how about three pharmacies?  

That was the amazing offer that landed in my email this week. For a low seven-figure sum, you could be the proud owner of three beautiful pharmacies. This was such a special opportunity – the agent promised it was a genuine retirement sale – it even came with a code name. Super.

What do you get for your millions? A significant chunk of dispensing business, including a fancy robot. That probably helps with all that dispensing. Three pharmacies, two traditional, local style pharmacies, the third – the robot – in the local health centre. I bet the rent for that isn’t cheap. And they’ve got one of those 24-hour vending machines too, to sweeten the deal.  Let me think about it.

The thing is, in the same area a similar sized pharmacy sold for a remarkably similar price – only this was thirty years ago. According to the Bank of England, your asset value should have doubled over the years, not stayed the same.

But let us entertain the fantasy. Suppose I was shopping around for a pharmacy or two, it would do no harm to look around, see what the lay of the land looks like.

It used to take five minutes to walk to my nearest pharmacy, it now takes just under 12 minutes.  

Not that I’ve moved, mind. A 30-minute stroll five years ago could find me in anyone of 13 pharmacies. That number is now one less, a reduction in choice for me that is a fair approximation of the decline in the estate nationally, where numbers have fallen just under 10 per cent since their peak.

That headline figure only tells part of the story. It’s what the remaining estate is able to offer that reveals the true state of community pharmacy in 2024.

Thirteen became 12 because of a closure of a high street multiple. Sandwiched between a kebab shop and a barbers, the owner of both adjacent stores snapped up the lease and converted it into a convenience store selling single-use vapes, toiletries and pot noodles. It is brightly lit, well stocked and thriving.

Let us then tour the surviving 12 and see what the competition is like, if I were to spend my millions.

First, there are two supermarket pharmacies and a big retail park store. At first glance there would seem to be nothing different about them today than if you had been there in 2019. As long as you’re not there when the pharmacist is on their lunch, or late, or not there at all. To be fair, it was always so with one of the supermarkets but what was once an occasional inconvenience is now a constant across all three operators.

Even when the pharmacist is there, let’s hope you don’t need to purchase a pharmacy only medicine outside of the meagre selection they have on offer. And, no they probably won’t offer to order it in for you tomorrow, certainly not this afternoon.

Then there are three pharmacies sharing spaces in a bustling local shopping centre.  A regional multiple, a national multiple and an independent in an old multiple’s space. All very different. The regional multiple appears to have given up the concept of retail and is just a waiting area, counter and dispensary, with a consultation room thrown in for good measure. It feels like they were aiming for ‘clinical’ but can’t think of anything clinical to do.  

Of the other two, the national multiple hasn’t changed at all, and the aisles are starting to fill with Lynx gift sets and scented talcs in time for Christmas. The newly minted independent is closed, absent a pharmacist.

Stretching my legs a little further, the story doesn’t improve. There are two bustling pharmacies in or adjacent to GP surgeries, but the remaining four are shells of what they used to be. Lacking in staff, stock and a reason to be. 

The last one I visit, another ex-multiple snapped up by a small chain, has just pulled out of provided locally commissioned services to focus on dispensing.  The shelves are bare and a handwritten sign in the window says “No cash”.

Thirteen becoming 12 doesn’t sound like much. But dig a little deeper and it’s more like 13 becoming seven or eight. The rest are pharmacies in name only, a shadow of what they used to be.

The new government’s mantra is that there is no money left right now, but things will get better – there will be a new NHS 10-year plan. Ask your pharmacist if they will still be there in 10 years, or whether they might be better off selling vapes and pot noodles.

Outsider is a community pharmacy commentator