A SUPERMARKET giant will be closing a key service within several of its stores.
Tesco has revealed it’ll shut eight of its pharmacies within its megastores from August.
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Those that are closing are 100-hour pharmacies, which is a pharmacy that is open 100 hours a week, and are not receiving enough footfall to stay open.
Eight pharmacies will close later this year, though Tesco wouldn’t tell us which ones.
But those at risk will be within near another pharmacy to ensure customers don’t need to travel far to get their medication.
The supermarket had already said it was planning on closing some of its pharmacies at the start of the year as it was “restructuring proposals”.
Customers who collect prescriptions from the closing pharmacies will be transferred over to another one, but Tesco will contact them ahead of the close, according to Chemist and Druggist.
However, shoppers will still be able to pick up over-the-counter medication within the main supermarket.
The supermarket giant currently has 20 pharmacies within its superstores.
Superstores are the bigger supermarkets that often contain more than just groceries like clothes, tech, games and pharmacies.
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They are:
- Tesco London
- Tesco Manchester
- Tesco Nottingham
- Tesco Stoke-on-Trent
- Tesco Bradford
- Tesco Bristol
- Tesco Liverpool
- Tesco Bedford
- Tesco Cambridge
- Tesco Chesterfield
- Tesco Coventry
- Tesco Ipswich
- Tesco Leeds
- Tesco Aberdeen
- Tesco Ashford
- Tesco Basildon
- Tesco Blackburn
- Tesco Bolton
- Tesco Bridgend
- Tesco Cardiff
This isn’t the first cohort of pharmacies closing within supermarkets.
Lloyds Pharmacy has announced a whole raft of closures this year, withdrawing 237 branches from Sainsbury’s stores.
Sainsbury’s struck a deal to sell its pharmacy business to Lloyds Pharmacy in 2015 for £125 million.
At the time it meant around 2,500 Sainsbury’s pharmacy staff transferred to Lloyds.
But Lloyds Pharmacy has now confirmed all its Sainsbury’s pharmacies – 237 in total – will stop operating.
Lloyds Pharmacies that aren’t based in Sainsbury’s stores will stay open.
Most recently, Lloyds said it would shut the doors on four chemists in Suffolk and Bristol this month.
What other retailers are closing stores?
Retailers have been shutting shops as they battle the knock-on effects of high inflation.
Not only that, but the coronavirus pandemic has seen lots more consumers move towards online shopping and away from the high street.
M&Co started closing stores in March after the company fell into administration for the second time.
B&M has also been closing stores this year, but in good news, it’s also been opening branches as well.
Marks and Spencer is also set to close a number of branches this spring, while some have already pulled down their shutters.
Stationery giant Paperchase started closing down stores in March too.
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