Derbyshire’s Peak Pharmacy suffered a pre-tax loss of £4.4 million, according to the multiple’s annual report released on Companies House last month (August 28).

But its newly opened hub and spoke facility promises to “transform the way that the company provides services to patients”, according to the annual report of its parent company, also published on Companies House in August.

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Peak Pharmacy saw its sales grow by 14% year-on- year to top £182m in the year ending on November 30, its financial statements revealed.

With growing “prescription volume and service levels”, its holding company described the pharmacy business as “satisfactory under difficult trading conditions”.

 

“Pressure on profitability”

 

Peak Pharmacy said that it “expects continued pressure on profitability” to feature in the coming year owing to funding pressures from the government.

The pharmacy chain intends to “monitor its overheads diligently” in the year to come, it added.

And it said that the company sold two branches during the year and sold four of its “pharmacy contracts” and closed two of its branches after the reporting period ended.

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The multiple, founded in 1981 and based in Chesterfield, currently operates 135 pharmacies and an online pharmacy, according to a statement about its new hub and spoke facility.

In its shareholder’s report, Peak Pharmacy’s parent company said that it “sought to consolidate” in response to the community pharmacy sector’s “financial constraints”.

The chain operates pharmacies in an area that “covers the South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Milton Keynes, Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Midlands areas, now stretching down to Worcestershire”, it added.

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The multiple has been “actively” recruiting pharmacists “to ensure stability”, it said.

It reported 1,465 “pharmacists, counter staff and drivers” in its staff complement in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, with its total wage bill rising to £32.5m.

 

Hub hubbub

 

Peak Pharmacy’s major event for the year was its new hub and spoke facility, which will let the chain assemble its prescriptions “en masse”, it said.

Its holding company noted that with a “go-live” date of April 2024, the new assembly and dispensing process would be rolled out to the company’s pharmacies over six months, with the capacity to expand this to other pharmacy groups in the future.

The chain will fully automate the assembly of “more than 50% of prescriptions” using its hub, which it said would lead to “risk reduction”, simpler stock management and the release of resources, it added.

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A total of 82 of its pharmacies send their “original pack repeat dispensing orders” to the hub, while the remaining 53 branches will follow suit “by the end of September”, its hub software provider Centred Solutions said last month.

Peak Pharmacy managing director Joe Cattee added that the multiple currently processes “around 1.5% of the country’s prescriptions”.

He said that the multiple’s work with Centred Solutions and other technology providers for its hub provided it with “the opportunity for us to survive during very real economic challenges for pharmacy”.

 

Profits and losses

 

Earlier this month, C+D reported that Day Lewis - the UK’s second largest independent multiple - delivered profits of £8m in 2023 as its sales topped £500m. 

The same day, C+D revealed that Superdrug's parent company AS Watson had declared dividend income of £119.5m, which included £45m from Superdrug and £35m from Savers. 

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Last month, “fast-growing” South West London chain Pearl Chemist told C+D that it uses its hub to create capacity and to bolster patient safety and staff wellbeing, as it declared a loss before tax of £290,000, down from the previous year’s profit of over £800,000. 

And in June, Britannia Pharmacy reported that its pre-tax profit had dipped by 96% to just £22,691 in 2023 as the independent multiple said it was “reeling from the aftermath of the pandemic”.