THE opening of a private chemist in Barrow's hospital will allow much needed NHS cash to seep into the pockets of international shareholders, critics claim.
A new LloydsPharmacy opened at Barrow's Furness General Hospital today to serve visitors and outpatients as well as providing drugs for patients on the wards.
But members of the hospital's own governing body are angry at the move they have branded as 'NHS privatisation by the back door'.
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Hospital governor Anne Burns said allowing a private firm to open a store at FGH was 'short sighted' - and that the option of a community model, used in hospitals elsewhere in the country, was never properly investigated.
A community pharmacy allows any profits made by the enterprise to be donated back to the hospital.
"We proposed an alternative model that would have put all the profits back into the hospital itself.
"It would have worked" Mrs Burns added.
"Allowing an outside company to come in like this is will put profit straight into the back pockets of shareholders.
"It's privatisation by the back door and I'm very sceptical about it," she said.
Hospital bosses claimed the move to a private outpatient pharmacy service was taken to solve a long-running recruitment shortage.
They added it would make the system safer for patients by allowing hospital pharmacists to spend more time on the wards.
Westmorland General Hospital, in Kendal, and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, both run by the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, are also to get a Lloyds Pharmacy on site by September.
And a new stock control system will be up and running across the trust by October through Lloyds Pharmacy's sister company AAH Pharmaceuticals.
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Kam Mom, UHMBT chief pharmacist and accountable officer for controlled drugs, said: "My team and I are passionate about providing high quality
pharmacy services to our patients, and the recent investment made by the trust really will help to make our services better for both patients and staff, seven days a week.
"By LloydsPharmacy working in partnership with the trust, we will be able to focus on our patients on the wards."
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