AROUND 2,000 jobs are at risk after Lloyd’s Pharmacy announced it will be removing its services from all Sainsbury’s supermarkets.
The Coventry firm said it would be pulling out of 237 stores this year due to ‘changing market conditions’ with individual branches to be put up for sale.
Its parent firm Celesio purchased Sainsbury’s pharmacy network back in 2015 for £125million, with 2,500 staff transferring to Lloyds.
The firm said it was working with colleagues potentially affected by the changes and added it would support them through the process.
Lloyds chief executive Kevin Birch said: “This decision has not been an easy one and we understand that our patients and customers may have questions about how the change will affect them.
“We would like to thank them for their continued support and assure them that we are committed to providing a smooth transition over the coming months.”
Nigel Swift, deputy managing director at pharmacy group Phoenix UK, added: “This announcement is the clearest possible sign of the dire situation facing community pharmacy in England as a result of insufficient government funding.
“Since the start of the pharmacy contract, there has been a massive cut in real-term funding resulting in hundreds of closures. This has to be a wake-up call for the government.”
