BUSINESS
brings its own problems thanks to margins being squeezed.
‘Pharmacy is facing the same issues as other high street retailers – increasing rents and rates, parking issues, changing consumer behaviour etc. Where I think we have the advantage over our supermarket competition, however – an advantage that isn’t shared with other forms of retail – is that community pharmacy provides a very high level of personal service. our business is not only family run, we focus on elements such as continuity of staff to ensure that patients can develop a relationship with us: something, which I think is very important in an area like healthcare, which is, after all, very personal to the individual.
‘the way forward for community pharmacy – in my opinion – is, I believe to operate as a professional, patient-facing operation in clean, clinical areas, while simultaneously providing a personal, friendly, retail environment and a one-to-one service.’
financial burden on their businesses,’ the two men said, ‘restricting growth and, on occasions, forcing them to close. In addition, Northern Ireland has nearly twice the UK’s national average of levels of high street dereliction. We believe our rates plan will address this problem and begin to reverse this decline.
‘We propose a tiered system of reliefs ranging from: • 100 per cent for those with an NAv under £10,000;
• 50 per cent for those with an NAv of between £10,000 and under £15,000 and;
• 25 per cent for those with an NAv of between £15,000 and under £25,000.
‘the total cost of this relief would be £36m, which would mean that an additional £18m is needed above the £18m that it currently costs to provide Small Business Rate Relief. In order to fund this additional £18m, we recommend that the vacant Property Relief after three months should be reduced from its current 50 per cent to fifteen per cent.
‘our scheme is fully costed and involves no new expenditure to the NI Executive budget. It is value for the taxpayer, ensuring that the businesses that need help with their rates bills the most, receive it.’
Niall corry is the owner of three family-owned pharmacies in the west of the Province.
‘As with most community pharmacies in NI,’ said Niall, ‘our main competition is the out-of-town supermarkets. the ‘everything under one roof’ approach to shopping has definitely been sinking into the psyche of local shoppers for some years now and all independent and high street retailers have suffered from it.
‘Also, one big issue that we have here in Enniskillen is that of parking. the traffic wardens around here are very aggressive in how they deal with people parking; they don’t let people park for any amount of time at all, and, naturally, this puts people off shopping in the town centre. It’s hardly surprising that they prefer to drive outside of the town to a
supermarket where they can park quite easily – and for free!
‘I suppose that, in terms of the supermarkets, we’re quite lucky in that, unlike other areas, there are no pharmacies in any of our local supermarkets – yet! – so community pharmacies are still needed.
‘At the moment, we know that people have to come to us for their scrips, so all we can do is recognise that, once we have them in the shop, we can interest them in buying other products. to do that, we have to compete price wise and, to do that, we have to try to buy at the best prices. Needless to say, in trying to beat the competition by selling at the cheapest prices, we spend an exorbitant amount of time in sourcing the right products at the right prices!
‘A lot depends on whether a pharmacy’s revenue is essentially scrip or retail based. our castlederg pharmacy, for example, is more retail based since it’s not competing in the same area as a tesco or Asda. our Enniskillen store, on the other hand, is more scrip based. that, of course,
UcA RESPoNdS to thE chAllENgES fAcEd BY PhARmAcY the slow or no growth economy is impacting on the retail side of pharmacy businesses. the loss of local employment has a knock-on effect on other businesses in the community.
At the same time, business costs continue to rise; there is upward pressure on wages and rent and business rates are cripplingly high for many pharmacies. UcA is joining NIIRtA and other business organisations calling for an urgent review of business rates particularly for small retail businesses and we are delighted that finance minister máirtín Ó muilleoir is listening to concerns.
the economic uncertainty going forward caused by Brexit is a shadow hanging over many businesses and pharmacy will not be immune. We are told that the impact of Brexit hasn’t been felt yet and there are hard times ahead, which will not be reassuring to SmEs. Pharmacies therefore will be keen to hear what the new pharmacy contract will bring – new services for pharmacy to deliver will be a welcome boost. •
PhARmAcY IN focUS - 57
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