As AIMp rebrands to the Independent Pharmacies Association, the latest representative group acronym (IPA) has our anonymous correspondent reaching for the beer…

Things used to be simple, once upon a time. There were three options for your lowly pharmacy proprietor when it came to seeking representation on the national stage. Like joining a tribe, you would look around and see where you fit best, and it was usually an easy choice.

For the owner of a single pharmacy, or a handful, the natural home was the National Pharmacy Association (NPA). The OG. The Granddaddy of representation. Having started off as the Retail Pharmacists’ Union in 1921, it rebranded as the National Pharmaceutical Union 11 years later. By 1977, it had become the National Pharmaceutical Association, and three years later, its negotiating committee would become independent and stand alone as the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee.

Except that, of course, it wasn’t the original. The Retail Pharmacists Union was not primogenitor – that title goes to none other than the Company Chemists’ Association, formed in 1898.

That’s right, the big boys got there first and the plucky independent was always playing catch up. A little bit late perhaps, but it was an independent voice, and for most pharmacy owners, a more natural home. After all, the Company Chemists’ Association was the big bad wolf – the one you were competing against.

The NPA was the natural fit for the majority outside of the large multiples. But what if you were straddling that space, between the plucky independent and the huge conglomerate?

There a was a gap, in-betwixt and in between. A not too hot, not too cold, just right space between the one-man band and the multinational. And to fill that gap arrived the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies with the incongruous acronym of AIMp. One would have assumed that being a pharmacy was the most important qualifying feature, not the least.

AIMp, at least in its most recent, incorporated form, was established in 2002. It was targeted at larger independents who wanted to have a more distinct voice than what they found at the NPA but weren’t quite yet in the same league as the traditional Big Eight.

It was a niche it carved out well. AIMp successfully negotiated rights of representation at local and national levels. In addition to designated places on PSNC, local pharmaceutical committees would reserve a place for an AIMp representative if there were more than seven or eight per cent of AIMp contractors on their patch.

With an increasing amount of regional multiples switching over time from NPA membership to AIMp membership, the number of AIMp representatives swelled, even to the point that they dominated some LPCs.

Yet what’s in a name? What is a multiple? Who is an independent? Time was, there were rules about these things.

If you like reviewing historical statistical tables of community pharmacy ownership and NHS statistics (who doesn’t?), a multiple was to be one of 10 or more. Which seems, at first glance reasonable.

I’ve never owned 10 pharmacies, but if I did, I think I would feel quite ‘multiple’. I’ve certainly worked in small groups numbering between 10 and 20 pharmacies and there’s a different feel to working for a sole trader, or a supermarket.

Purchasing power certainly starts to kick in after more than three or four pharmacies – 10 seemed a reasonable number. Then, at some point in the 2000s or early 2010s, the statistics changed, and you were a multiple if you were six or more. It feels different, but it’s still plausible. Economies of scale and all that.

Welcome to 2024, and multiple is now two – at least according to the Association of Independent Multiple “small-p” pharmacies, or should that be the Independent Pharmacies Association? Yes, it seems that AIMp has taken the view that if the CCA can have a member with a single digit number of pharmacies, then it can too.

AIMp has rebranded itself to the Independent Pharmacies Association, or more accurately IPA-Pharmacies Ltd. No, it won’t be launching its own brand of hipster pale ales. It’s just that there were already too many “Independent Pharmacy” type names already registered at Companies House. Shame, because a good IPA might be what is needed to wash down this swill.

The NPA and the CCA have underperformed for their members consistently over the past few years, and that undoubtedly leaves a vacuum to be filled. But not by AIMp, whose sum contribution to the debate over the last few years could best be approximated by the mild hiss as you open a bottle of Indian Pale Ale.

They have all underperformed because the sector no longer speaks with one voice. The truth is that the sector does not need new voices, or rebranded voices. It needs one voice. It had that once, and now, more than ever, it needs it again. 

Outsider is a community pharmacy commentator