Morrisons has revealed the locations where its pharmacy premises are set for closure.
The supermarket giant today (March 24) announced that it is “proposing a number of changes over the next few months” to “help mitigate recent significant cost increases”, including the closure of four pharmacies.
Read more: BREAKING: Morrisons to close four pharmacies
Morrisons told C+D that the four pharmacy locations tipped for closure are:
- Bradford Victoria
- Blackburn Railway Road
- London Wood Green
- Birmingham Small Heath
Hundreds risk redundancy
The supermarket also set out plans to close 52 cafés, all 18 of its “market kitchens”, 17 convenience stores, 13 florists, 35 meat counters and 35 fish counters.
Morrisons said that the decision was made following “a wide-ranging review”, which “identified a number of areas where the costs of operations are significantly out of line with usage, volumes or the value that customers place on them”.
Read more: Morrisons launches ‘on-demand’ online pharmacy service
It added that while the “significant majority” of staff affected are “expected to be deployed in suitable roles elsewhere in Morrisons”, some 365 staff members are at risk of redundancy.
It remains unclear how many, if any, of the 365 workers are pharmacy staff.
“Necessary” changes
“The changes we are announcing today are a necessary part of our plans to renew and reinvigorate Morrisons”, chief executive Rami Baitiéh said.
He added that the closures will enable the company to “focus [its] investment into the areas that customers really value and that can play a full part in our growth”.
Read more: Revealed: Tesco set to close 10 in-store pharmacies
“Although these changes are relatively small in the context of the overall scale of the Morrisons business, we do not take lightly the disruption and uncertainty they will cause to some of our colleagues,” he said.
“We will of course take particular care to look after all of them well through the coming changes,” he stressed.
Read more: Multiple meltdown: How many branches of each chain survived 2024?
In January, the chain announced the launch of the “Morrisons Clinic”, an “online private prescription service” that delivers medication “straight to [a patient’s] door without a GP appointment”.
And in February, C+D analysis found that Morrisons was the only pharmacy chain to start and end the year period between the second quarters of 2023/24 and 2024/25 with the same number of pharmacies.
Meanwhile last month, C+D exclusively revealed that supermarket chain Tesco is set to close 10 of its pharmacies “later this year”.
