What do the multiples' sell-offs mean for independents?

What have the multiples sold or closed?

More than 1,500 branches have changed hands or shut since January 2023, and the two largest chains account for most of them. LloydsPharmacy announced in January 2023 that it would withdraw from all 237 of its pharmacies in Sainsbury's stores, with up to 2,500 job losses. By November 2023 its owner, Hallo Healthcare Group, had sold all 1,054 of its remaining high street and community pharmacies, individually or in regional packages, to independent owners and local entrepreneurs. It said 99% of them stayed open and 6,500 branch staff kept their jobs. Boots announced in June 2023 that it would close 300 UK stores over twelve months, taking its network to 1,900.

The table sets out the announcements as reported by The Pharmacist, the Pharmaceutical Journal and the House of Commons Library.

Jhoots does not belong with the multiples by size, but it belongs in the story. The group had bought about 60 branches from LloydsPharmacy in 2023. By October 2025 its pharmacies owed locum pharmacists close to £1m, branches were closing and the Prime Minister said customers and staff had been "badly let down". Allied Pharmacies took over 60 branches in November 2025. Administrators' reports filed in January 2026 said the 2023 purchases were made without the structures needed to run them. They blamed higher staff costs and rents, stagnant NHS pricing and rising drug costs.

Why are the chains selling?

Because the branches lose money, and a corporate owner can put the capital somewhere else. Each chain gave its own reason. Boots wanted to "consolidate a number of stores in close proximity to each other" and concentrate staff "where they are needed". Hallo Healthcare kept LloydsPharmacy's clinical homecare, online doctor and wholesale businesses and sold the shops. Morrisons, which reported a £321m loss in its last financial year, is cutting cafés, counters and pharmacies together.

The common cause is the economics of a dispensary. A DHSC written answer on 24 February 2026 put contract funding at £3,864m in 2015/16 in 2025/26 prices, falling to £2,776m in 2023/24 before the 2025/26 settlement lifted it to £3,073m. The independent economic analysis by Frontier Economics and IQVIA for NHS England, published on 9 October 2024, found 47% of branches were not profitable at EBITDA level in 2023/24. A chain with 1,000 branches and a head office can see exactly which ones those are, and it can close or sell them without closing the company. An independent with one branch cannot.

Janet Morrison, chief executive of Community Pharmacy England, made that point when Boots announced its closures in June 2023. Consolidations can make a difference across large networks, she said, but smaller and medium-sized businesses "are having to look at other options". In February 2026 she said the Morrisons sale would "come as no surprise to those battling to survive in the current climate". Malcolm Harrison of the Company Chemists' Association, which represents the large chains, said the same month that the funding model "no longer reflects the true cost of delivering NHS pharmaceutical care".

Do patients move to independents?

Mostly yes, and the market data shows it. Christie & Co's 2023 review of UK pharmacy, reported in October 2023, found corporate operators had lost a net 200 stores in a year and medium-sized groups 68, while independents gained 167. Companies with 300 or more stores fell to about 35% of the market. Dispensing volume in England rose 4% in the twelve months to March 2023, to an average of 8,078 items a month per pharmacy. The prescriptions did not disappear; they moved.

Where they moved depends on the kind of exit. A sale keeps the branch open under a new owner, which is what happened to 99% of the LloydsPharmacy estate. A closure sends patients to the nearest pharmacy still open, and Boots chose its closures so that the nearest was often another Boots. The net effect on the network was severe all the same. The Commons Library's series from NHS England data shows England lost 435 pharmacies in the year to February 2024, against 75 the year before and 157 the year after.

For an independent within a mile of a closed chain store, the arithmetic is simple and welcome: more items, more Pharmacy First consultations, more footfall. For patients in areas with no independent left, it is not. NPA analysis published in October 2025 found the highest closure rates per head in Liverpool, York, Blackpool, Wakefield, Coventry and Hull, and above-average deprivation across the 50 worst-hit areas. Our closures analysis maps where the gaps are.

What has it done to the acquisition market?

It filled the market with stock and changed who buys. Christie & Co's Business Outlook 2023, published in January 2023, said corporate operators had implemented disposal strategies, "offloading significant volumes of pharmacies in certain areas". It said 80% of enquiries came from first-time buyers. A year later its Business Outlook 2024 reported that first-time buyers took 45% of completed sales in 2023, up from 23% in 2022. Its pharmacy price index fell 4.6%, and distressed sales rose from 3% to 10% of transactions.

Put those together and the picture is a buyer's market with a warning attached. Prices softened, supply rose and the typical buyer was borrowing to make a first purchase. Tony Evans, Christie & Co's head of pharmacy, argued in January 2023 that branches which "don't necessarily work in a corporate setting" could still work for an independent. Jhoots is the counter-example: a regional group that bought a package of LloydsPharmacy branches and, on its administrators' account, lacked the structures to run them. Our valuation guide explains why this site publishes no multiples and how to read the market evidence instead.

Should an independent buy a former chain branch?

Only on the branch's own numbers, and with a clear view of what the chain was escaping. A former corporate branch differs from an independent sale in four ways.

The strongest case is the one Boots itself made. It closed stores in close proximity to other Boots stores, which means the patients still exist and still need a pharmacy within walking distance. An independent that already trades nearby does not need to buy anything; it needs to be open, stocked and visible when the chain's doors shut. The weakest case is a distant branch bought for its contract alone, which is the Jhoots pattern.

How do chain closures affect NHS commissioning?

They rewrite the local map that commissioners plan from. Integrated care boards handle pharmacy commissioning for NHS England, and health and wellbeing boards publish the pharmaceutical needs assessment that decides whether a new pharmacy is needed. A chain closure that leaves a gap can support a routine application to fill it. Consolidation is different. Where a chain used regulation 26A of the 2013 Regulations to fold one store into another, the health and wellbeing board issues a supplementary statement that no gap was created. That statement blocks new applications until the next assessment.

Two other levers exist. The Pharmacy Access Scheme pays up to £17,500 a year to pharmacies more than a mile from the next nearest, or 0.8 miles in the most deprived areas. The fund is capped at £20m, and Community Pharmacy England lists 1,445 eligible pharmacies. And since 25 May 2023, regulation 67 has required six months' notice to close premises with a 100-hour condition, against three months for a standard listing. That change arrived in the middle of the LloydsPharmacy and Boots programmes.

What commissioners cannot do is stop a sale or a closure. The Regulations give NHS England a notice period and a removal process, not a veto. The only exception is the fitness regime: after Jhoots, the government said in November 2025 that it was "working speedily" to consider how to strengthen regulation of pharmacy owners. At the date of writing the 2013 Regulations had not been amended in response.

Will more chains sell branches?

Yes, on the evidence of the last twelve months. Morrisons announced its sale in February 2026. Tesco closed ten pharmacies in 2025. Well Pharmacy opened a combined store with Holland & Barrett in Warrington in December 2025. That is a format experiment rather than a retreat, but it says the standalone dispensary model is under review even at the chains that are staying. Boots has already cut to 1,900 stores.

The pressures that drove the 2023 disposals have not eased. The NPA reported in February 2026 that 65% of pharmacies operated at a loss in 2025 and 45% of owners had used personal savings or remortgaged. More than 3,000 owners signed its open letter warning of closures and service cuts. At the date of writing the 2026/27 contract settlement had not been announced, and the March 2025 settlement had promised only that negotiations would start after the Spending Review. Supermarkets and corporate owners with weak branches have every reason to keep selling, and independents remain the natural buyers.

That is also how consolidation works from the other side. Scale buyers, including online operators, are picking up volume as the chains withdraw; who is buying UK pharmacies, and why sets out who they are.

What should an independent do now?

Decide which of three positions you are in, because each has a different playbook. If a chain store near you has closed or is closing, the prescriptions are coming to you whether you buy anything or not. The work is capacity: staffing, stock, nominations and opening hours. If a chain branch near you is for sale, the question is whether owning it beats competing with whoever else buys it. If you are the seller, the same supply that makes buying cheap makes selling harder, and our guide to preparing a pharmacy for sale explains how to stand out.

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