There was an urgent parliamentary debate about Jhoots pharmacy on 15 October 2025 in Westminster. During the 44-minute session (available on the PDA YouTube channel) members of parliament from across the political spectrum raised concerns about the behaviour of Jhoots pharmacies, including not opening branches, management of controlled drugs, and not paying staff, landlords and other suppliers. The PDA has regularly raised the issue of unpaid locum fees owed by Jhoots businesses, of which more than £870K was outstanding to PDA members at the time of the debate, and reminded MPs of this after the debate.
While acknowledging the important work undertaken by community pharmacy, pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock, acknowledged that the actions of Jhoots pharmacy were well below expected standards. He explained that several Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) were deploying contract management actions against Jhoots, initially in the form of breach notices, and that the General Pharmaceutical Council was taking regulatory action. While restricted from discussing active cases in detail, the Minister told parliament how powers existed to prevent business from being able to provide NHS services in future.
WHY Bad business behaviours must be tackled
The PDA has highlighted for many years that while individual pharmacy registrants are subject to strict regulatory enforcement, it often seems that pharmacy owners face no consequences regardless of their business behaviour. Instead, they continue to receive taxpayer funds and are allowed to operate under the NHS banner. The PDA has not only made this point in public, but also in many interactions across the UK with parliamentarians, decision makers and other stakeholders in private meetings and communications. As a campaigning organisation, the PDA understands that delivering change must be achieved through such sustained hard work which is not always visible to members. These micro influences educate and inform stakeholders as to the perspective and experience of pharmacists and the positive solutions to the challenges faced. The parliamentary debate was a moment where government position finally shifted after that incredible volume of activity.
Mr Kinnock acknowledged “I am in touch with the Pharmacists’ Defence Association—the PDA—which is doing important work representing its members. I will be meeting them soon.
Mr Kinnock also said the GPhC’s regulations were “robust” but insisted “what we clearly now need to do is upgrade the way we regulate pharmacy business owners”.
“We do not have a strong enough regulatory framework. We need to look at the way that business owners are regulated. There is strong regulation of pharmacists and pharmacy staff such as technicians, but business owners are not regulated as strongly as they could and should be.”
While the government is now committed to tackling bad business behaviour, as pharmacists we know that prevention is better than cure. The Jhoots crisis, and the associated damage to the reputation of pharmacy, is a symptom of structures in which by default, government do not adequately engage with the pharmacist profession.
The PDA understand why for historical reasons the government has longstanding arrangements for dialogue with certain ‘pharmacy’ organisations. Many seem to believe that this constitutes engaging with pharmacists, and it is sometimes reported as such. However, those bodies represent the interest of pharmacy business shareholders.
While those employers are also important stakeholders, the PDA believes that the representatives of the workforce should be around the table when these standards, regulations and contracting arrangements are discussed. The PDA is in a unique position to do that, with 40,000+ members it is materially larger than any other pharmacist body, and because the PDA exclude pharmacy owners from membership it can represent the interests of employed and locum pharmacists as health professionals who prioritise patient care, without the conflict of business interests, like nobody else.
In the NHS, the PDA is already a partner in the tripartite structure called the Social Partnership Forum (SPF). This brings employers, employee and government representatives together to have discussions that consider all those perspectives.
The PDA strongly believe with the perspective of frontline pharmacists contributing to strategic discussion related to community pharmacy, through tripartite arrangements, the issues that have led to the Jhoots crisis could have been highlighted and addressed long before the need for the parliamentary intervention.
Learn more
- Watch the parliamentary debate about Jhoots here
Not yet a PDA member?
If you have not yet joined the PDA, we encourage you to join today and ask your colleagues to do the same.
Membership is FREE to pharmacy students, trainee pharmacists and for the first three months of being newly qualified.