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The decision to stop registered online pharmacies from providing faceto-face NHS services from their premises did not receive the immediate attention that other aspects of the new contractual settlement did. 

It could, however, lead to a dragged-out conflict between distance selling pharmacies (DSPs) and the sector’s negotiator – perhaps even with the politicians responsible for putting regulations into law.

We should all be fighting the same fight, came the cries of protest from DSP owners, who in future will only be able to provide NHS services remotely. This is simply divide and rule, they claimed. 

Community Pharmacy England (CPE) thinks differently. When the change is effected in October, DSPs will “have to do what their name implies”, said CPE, which argues that the regulations are merely being updated to refl ect the huge growth in services since the distance selling regulations were first drafted. 

I can appreciate it seems pretty brutal, axing what has been an important revenue stream. Some DSP owners claim it is going to cost them tens or even hundreds of thousands in annual revenue, and in these straitened times that is not something I wish on any contractor. 

But the fact is that online pharmacies, which typically enjoy much lower overheads than their community counterparts, have benefi ted in numerous ways from ‘grey area’ status ever since they came on the scene. 

That doesn’t only apply to face-to-face services, as the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) ever more intense work to curb dodgy online prescribing practices shows (April saw the GPhC warn of sales of fat-dissolving ‘Lemon Bottle’ injectables, a new one on me). 

As the online sector becomes more regulated and more mainstream – something exemplified by Pharmacy2U having a seat at the CPE negotiating table – it is only to be expected that what some defi ne as ‘loopholes’ are going to get a hard looking at. 

That will hopefully include a clampdown on ‘pseudo’ distance dispensing too, with some claiming that, in fact, the majority of these businesses focus their activities on their immediate locality rather than across the whole of England as the regulations state with total clarity.

Don’t forget, it’s not just online businesses that are coming under this kind of scrutiny. Brick-and-mortar pharmacies have been stopped from farming out New Medicine Service (NMS) consultations to off -site locums, a practice that apparently has led to some otherwise unremarkable businesses absolutely storming the NMS charts. 

And it doesn’t stop DSPs from delivering clinical services – far from it. 

Huge numbers of NMS and Pharmacy First consultations are being delivered remotely at present, and there is no suggestion that they will prevented from doing so in the years to come. 

So for my two cents, this decision is only fair.