Update on the closure of Boots Pharmacy, Southmead Road and proposal by Greenway Pharmacy to open a pharmacy in the vicinity – Please read to the bottom of this message and email your support for a new pharmacy

As you know we were unsuccessful in our petition to the CEO of Boots to save our local pharmacy from closure.  As you also know the owner of the Greenway Pharmacy in Southmead was then interested in opening a pharmacy at or near the site of the Boots one that was closing.

There is a process that pharmacies have to go through to do this and we were notified of this by the applicant and shared the details with the local community.  Very many of your wrote in support of having a pharmacy there and we are now being asked by the pharmacist to write again.  Please read his message below this section.

We also wrote- as a local residents’ group - to the Bristol Health and Well-Being Board, who had a meeting a couple of days prior to the deadline for comments.  They considered our statement – which was basically a letter based on the petition wording – and the Council have told us

"...after discussion at the meeting, an email was sent to PCSE on 1st March confirming the Health and Wellbeing Board’s support for the application. It included how the new application will extend the hours of pharmacy cover beyond that of the original Boots offer to include both Saturday and Sunday morning opening hours, thereby increasing access. And that it mitigates the increased travel times to alternative pharmacies for the local population."

We also contacted the local NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board (BNSSG ICB) which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the NHS for our local area and provision of services.  They say they are considering the application at a meeting on the 7th May 2024 and their decision should be published about 10 days later.

Apparently the process includes contacting local existing pharmacies which can (and seemingly have) objected to this opening – even though there was a pharmacy operating there until a few months ago!  It seems they say that they can deal with the displaced customers from our locality.  However we have had a lot of people telling us how hard it is for them to get their prescription meds even when they are able to get to the alternative pharmacies.  Boots in Henleaze, for example, has huge queues and does not appear to have increased their staffing to deal with the additional work from the closure of the Southmead Pharmacy.  Older residents are having to travel by bus in the wind and rain (and we’ve had a lot of that in recent months).  Walking to the bus stop alone, is, for some, further to walk than it was to the local Boots. Then waiting for the bus in the wind and rain, then standing for half an hour or more in the Boots in Henleaze, then being told they have to come back another day and having to struggle home again and a back again another day with the same problems is simply not good enough.

When I spoke to a person at the Integrated Care Board they said if we are unhappy with the service we are getting from any of the area’s pharmacies we can and should complain in writing, by email to: england.pharmacysouthwest@nhs.net  Given they are asserting they are able to meet our needs when they clearly are not, please let the NHS know this.

The owner of the Greenway Pharmacy, Tanzil Ahmed, has sent us the following and asked us to share it with you

“As some of you may already know, the owner of Greenway Pharmacy applied to open a new Pharmacy on Southmead Road at the site of the recently closed Boots.

I know a lot of residents were heavily reliant on this pharmacy, hence it is important to open up a new one. 

Unfortunately, our request to open a new pharmacy has been met by a lot of objections from other local operators. Hence, we really need your support to try and make this new pharmacy a reality. 

We require letters of support to present to the NHS, with examples of where people have had difficulty in accessing pharmaceutical services whether that be by:

-          distance by foot

-          unreliable, difficult bus journeys

-          long waiting times

-          queues outside the door

-          lack of medication

Please please, provide as many examples as you can – as we need all the support we can get. 

For any letters of support to support our application with the NHS please can you email these to lakepharmacybristol@gmail.com 

If anyone has had issues accessing Pharmacy services, then I would encourage you to also complain directly to the NHS so they have this on file. 

We look forward to fighting this together and bringing a much-needed essential service back into the area.

Many thanks

Tanzil Ahmed “