Proposals to reduce the power of the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) in Community Pharmacy England’s (CPE) committee have been voted down at its most recent meeting – with representatives of smaller independent contractors choosing to maintain the power of corporate multiples, C+D understands.

In its annual report published last week (September 30), CPE vowed to change the composition of its twenty-four-person committee “as quickly as possible” after it “revisited” the issue of representation on its committee following “a significant period of change in sector ownership”.

But C+D understands that changes to the composition of its committee won’t take place before 2026.

Read more: Funding talks to resume after October 30 budget, says CPE

Since September 2023, the last time CPE voted on its committee composition, the number of pharmacies owned by large groups (more than 100 branches) has dropped by 11% and currently sits at 3,340 branches, according to September data from NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) published on October 4.

According to analysis provided to C+D by CPE, CCA members currently own 28.5% of pharmacies but account for 37.5% of the seats on its committee. Non-CCA multiples meanwhile account for 19.5% of pharmacies but are allocated 12.5% of the seats on the committee.

“Detailed evidence has confirmed that there remains a 50:50 split between independents and multiples in the sector,” said a CPE spokesperson.

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CPE categorises the representatives of so-called independents (those with one to nine pharmacies) on its committee as the ten regional representatives and the two representatives from the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).

For CPE, multiples those with more than nine branches. Nine seats are allocated to those that are CCA members and three to those that are not. Non-CCA members are widely understood to be Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) members.

This categorisation does not apply to CCA member Pharmacy2U, which joined in October 2023, and which has one very big branch. 

Read more: ‘A natural fit’: Pharmacy2U joins CCA following LloydsDirect takeover

CPE’s spokesperson said that its bisection of the sector between independents and multiples is “broadly in line” with the distinctions used by the government.

NHS BSA distinguishes between small pharmacy businesses (one to five branches), medium (six to 99), large (100 or more), as well as distance-selling pharmacies.

 

Don’t rock the boat

 

CPE’s composition has been a contentious topic since the UK’s second-largest multiple Lloydspharmacy exited the high street and changed the community pharmacy sector’s balance of power.

A spokesperson for CPE told C+D on Friday (October 4) that it would be “problematic” to remove committee members or their seats mid-term.

They added that bodies appointing representatives to CPE and those electing representatives had “an expectation” that they would be on the committee for a full election cycle of four years.

Read more: Lloydspharmacy confirms 'successful sale' of all community pharmacies

CPE’s spokesperson said that “continuously” changing its committee “would be “detrimental to continuity and stability in governance”.

As a concession, as an “interim measure” before 2026, two non-voting members from non-CCA multiples have been added as “observers” to the committee, and the negotiator is “seeking expressions of interest from owners with 10 or more pharmacy premises in England”, a spokesperson for the negotiator told C+D last week (October 2).

These observers may listen but not participate in any decisions, C+D understands.

 

“No time to distract our negotiators”

 

A spokesperson for the NPA said that it saw “no reason why this matter should be re-opened at this moment”.

Pharmacy owners were worried about “whether they can pay their staff” and less interested in the inner workings of Community Pharmacy England, they said.

“It is no time to distract our negotiators, and the sector as a whole, from the urgent work of securing a new contract and supporting pharmacies to deliver great care,” the NPA spokesperson said.

Read more: ‘A history of failure’: Weldricks boss blasts pharmacy negotiator

A spokesperson for the CCA meanwhile said that “the composition of the CPE committee is an internal matter for the CPE committee to decide upon”, adding that it was “confident” in the process used to determine its make-up.

The CCA spokesperson said that it was “concerned” that the committee’s composition had faced a vote for “the third time in a year”.

“Those that continue to force this agenda risk distracting both the committee and the CPE executive team from the important issues that the whole sector needs resolving,” said the spokesperson.

Read more: David and Goliath: Small chains now run more pharmacies than large multiples

A spokesperson for the IPA said that it would “wait” to commend on the composition of CPE’s committee because its “priority is to ensure negotiations are not affected”.

In December, the IPA called for Community Pharmacy England (CPE) to “adopt a model of proportionality” after the collapse of Lloydspharmacy changed the shape of the sector.

Read more: Most independents don’t think pharmacy negotiator is ‘representative’, says AIMp

In March, Weldricks operations director David Vanns decried the composition of CPE’s committee, describing the negotiator as “heavily biased towards corporate multiples”.

At the time, Vanns warned against drawing an equivalence between the interests of large multiples and those of independent multiples or individual contractors.

“There is nothing that Boots [does] that is in any way related to what I do, other than that [it dispenses] some prescriptions,” he said.