BOOTS has marked another four local pharmacies for permanent closures.
It comes after the pharmacy chain previously announced it would be pulling the shutters down on 300 shops over the next year.
The high street chain is now set to close its pharmacy in Bede Precinct, Jarrow, in mid-March.
The Jarrow store will cease to provide pharmaceutical services on from March 16, 2024 and will be removed from the pharmaceutical list for the area.
Reacting to the news on Facebook, one regular visitor said: "For crying out loud."
Jarrow MP, Kate Osborne MP said: "I am hugely disappointed with the news that Boots Pharmacy is closing its branch in the Viking Centre in Jarrow.
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"It provides a vital service to my constituents, collecting prescriptions and access to over the counter medications.
"Thirteen years of managed decline by consecutive conservative governments have damaged our high streets. This closure will be a massive loss to our town centre.
Boots will also be closing a further two stores in Bristol in Southmead and Hartcliffe.
We've asked the firm to confirm when these chemists will shut for good.
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A separate branch on Chepstow Road, Maindee in South Wales will close to shoppers for the final time on January 27, 2024.
The closures are part of wider plans that will see the retailer's total shops reduced from 2,200 to 1,900.
When the plans were announced in June, Boots had not confirmed which stores were set to shut.
It reported they would be from sites with multiple shops in one area.
But over time, the healthy and beauty chain has revealed which shops would be closing for good.
Community pharmacies are essential for providing services to local neighbourhoods but hundreds have been shut in recent years.
Pharmacies have struggled financially for years due to the level of reimbursements they receive from the NHS and the soaring costs of pharmaceuticals.
Chemist chains are also being asked to pick up the slack from the struggling health service by providing more services, such as vaccinations.
The pharmacy industry has lost £1.6billion in the last decade because the NHS's pharmacy contract has not kept pace with inflation.
Pharmacies have said that as a result, they face a massive cut to their real-term funding, which is resulting in mass closures.
Which Boots stores have already closed?
Here is the full list of stores that have already closed:
- Windhill Road, Wakefield – October 6
- Upper Warrengate, Wakefield – October 7
- Glastonbury – October 13
- Uppingham Road, Leicester – October 13
- Guildford Road, Woking – end of October
- Kings Square, York – October 28
- Warminster – October 28
- Gorleston, Great Yarmouth – November
- High Row, Darlington – November 3
- Mudge Way, Plymouth – November 18
- Mount Pleasant, Exeter – November 18
- Salford Shopping Centre, Greater Manchester – February 2023
- Church Street, Malvern – March 11
- The Port Arcades Shopping Centre, Ellesmere – March 11
- King William Street, London – June 2
- Heathside Road, Woking – end of July
- UEA campus – end of July
- Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff – August 1
- Holywell, Flintshire (Wales) – August 26
Boots in Front Street, Prudhoe is also set to close but no date has been set for this.
Affected team members have been offered opportunities in other stores in the local area.
Boots closed more than 200 stores over an eighteen-month period starting in 2019.
This saw roughly eight per cent of Boots high street branches close.
Many of the stores shut because they were loss-making and two-thirds of them were within walking distance of each other.
In 2020, Boots announced 48 opticians were closing with the loss of 4,000 jobs.
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