Does a pharmacy come off the NHS list when an administrator is appointed?

rajkamalbhatti

Oct 1

7 min read

No. NHS England's Pharmacy Manual says so in terms: there is no provision allowing the commissioner to remove a company and its premises from a pharmaceutical list because it has entered administration. What the appointment does is start one notification duty, change who the commissioner deals with, and put a person in control whose duty runs to creditors rather than to patients. The entry stays with the company until something else removes it.

What to do next

Establish who the commissioner currently believes the contractor is, and whether the notification under regulation 67A has actually been made. That is the single thing most likely to be wrong in the first fortnight, and it is the one that puts the pharmaceutical listing at risk rather than the administration itself.

You will need the administrator, a solicitor, and in England your integrated care board contact. RSB does not take appointments and does not give legal advice.

What RSB does is sit between them and the NHS side: what the commissioner needs to see, what a buyer will ask about the contract, and what the listing is worth if the business is sold rather than wound down. An administrator's duty runs to the creditors, not to your pharmacy — it helps to have someone reading it from your side.

Tell us what has been filed and when, in confidence. More on how these sales run is on the pharmacy insolvency page.

General information as at 1 October 2026, not legal, financial or insolvency advice. The lens is England: the pharmaceutical list, the integrated care board and the regulation numbers are English. Wales runs the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) (Wales) Regulations 2020, Scotland SSI 2009/183, and Northern Ireland has its own regulator and is outside what we cover.

This post covers only what the appointment changes. For the change-of-ownership route itself, What happens to the NHS contract when a pharmacy changes hands? has the sequence.

So what does take a pharmacy off the list?

Not insolvency. Three routes do the work, and each has its own decision-maker.

The change of ownership route. Regulation 75 of the NHS (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 is the one that operates on a sale: where a chemist is no longer to be the person listed for particular premises as a consequence of a change of ownership application, NHS England must remove that listing, or remove the chemist from the list altogether if those were their only listed premises. Removal is the consequence of somebody else being added, not a sanction.
The fitness route. Suspension, contingent removal and removal under regulations 82 to 84 are the commissioner's decisions, and they carry rights of appeal. Administration is not a ground in itself. A patient safety concern can be.
The terms of service route. Schedule 4 to the same Regulations sets the terms of service a contractor is held to, opening hours among them, and the commissioner decides what follows a breach.

One trap for a seller already under investigation: regulation 76 limits withdrawal from a pharmaceutical list while fitness investigations or proceedings are ongoing. Handing the contract back is not always available on demand.

Who has to tell whom, and by when?

Three clocks, three decision-makers, and the appointment starts only the first.

Regulation 67A, inserted into the 2013 Regulations in November 2020, requires an NHS chemist that enters administration to notify NHS England of that fact. The date is fixed by the Insolvency Act 1986: a company enters administration when the appointment of an administrator takes effect, under paragraph 1(2)(b) of Schedule B1. The Manual's form is completed on that date, one for each set of listed premises. Regulation 67A covers administration only, and the Manual is explicit that there is no equivalent duty in liquidation, and none where a sole trader or partnership is made bankrupt.

The second clock is the integrated care board's: as soon as practicable, and within thirty days of receiving all the information and documentation it requires, to determine a regulation 26 change of ownership application. The third sits on the incoming owner rather than on the company. Under section 74H of the Medicines Act 1968 the premises entry on the General Pharmaceutical Council's register ceases to be valid at the end of 28 days unless the registrar is notified in writing by the person who will be carrying on the business.

Who signs the change of ownership application now?

The administrator. The Manual is specific: it should be signed by the administrator as the representative of the company that currently owns the listed premises, and if it is not, the commissioner should raise it and proceed only with the administrator's written authority. A buyer who has agreed terms and sent the form off without that signature has not started the thirty days.

The Manual also tells the commissioner to ask the administrator whether the intention is to keep trading and, if it is, to consider whether the administration raises patient safety concerns. If it does, the commissioner may suspend the company while it decides whether to remove it on fitness grounds. A suspension is possible, then, but it follows a patient safety judgement rather than the insolvency.

Does the NHS keep paying?

Generally yes, and the Manual tells the commissioner not to stop: money owed to the company will be expected by the administrator to be paid, and NHS Business Services Authority payments should not be prevented simply because the company entered administration.

What has already been earned is a book debt of the company, collected in by the administrator rather than by the person who dispensed it, and creditors rank. An overpayment the commissioner has decided and cannot deduct from what is still due is, in the ordinary way, a claim submitted to the administrator. The figure is the commissioner's; where it ranks is the administrator's; apportionment between seller and buyer is a contract matter for the solicitors.

Does the administrator owe the patients anything?

Not as a matter of duty. Paragraph 3 of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986 sets the objectives, and the Manual records that administrators owe their duty to the creditors as a whole and have no duty to act in the interests of patients or the NHS. That is the job rather than a failing, and only a licensed insolvency practitioner may take the appointment. But it means dispensing continuity, the owed items, the delivery round and the rota are nobody's statutory responsibility in the process. Plan around that rather than waiting for it.

What happens to EPS nominations and the patient records?

Nominations continue. On a change of ownership the nomination carries to the new contractor, and patients should be told in advance where that is feasible and in all cases within six months. That notification is not marketing and it is not optional: it is what provides the basis for implying the patient's continued consent.

Whether the previous owner's ODS code is kept or a new one issued follows how the business is bought, and a new code pulls a PMR migration and reissued smartcards along with it, onto the people already trying to dispense. Establish which it is with NHS England before completion.

On a closure, nominations cannot be swept into another of the same contractor's pharmacies: the Manual states there is no provision in the Regulations for that, and patients must be told in advance and given the chance to nominate someone else. Nor are the records inventory. The controlled drugs register must be kept for two years from the last entry under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, and that duty sits on whoever was required to keep it rather than on the administrator.

What happens if the branch closes?

This is where the real timetable is, and it has nothing to do with the insolvency. Being open is a condition of being on the list rather than a commercial decision: withdrawing from a pharmaceutical list, or delisting particular premises, requires advance notice to NHS England under the 2013 Regulations, for a period those Regulations set rather than one the administration timetable sets. Read the current period there for the premises in question before relying on a number, and note what it means in practice: an administrator who decides on a Tuesday to shut on Friday cannot give it.

Not opening is the other half of the same problem, because the hours the list records are part of the terms of service. The immediate work on the shop floor is the undispensed prescriptions, telling the patients, and safe and lawful arrangements for the controlled drugs: destruction needs an authorised witness, and moving stock to a different legal entity is wholesale dealing rather than a stock transfer.

Why do both sides get this wrong, and what should you do now?

Because the two errors point in opposite directions and each feels like caution. The seller treats the entry as lost and sells as though there is nothing to sell. The buyer treats it as something that comes with the shop: it does not transfer and it is not assigned, and a completion with no determination in hand leaves somebody else as the listed contractor while the buyer dispenses. The staff position is misread the same way, because buying out of administration does not mean buying without the team, as What happens to the team when a pharmacy changes hands? explains.

So: notify on the day the appointment takes effect, one form per set of listed premises. Keep opening. Keep the records and the responsible pharmacist notice right, because those duties sit on people rather than on the company. And get the administrator's written authority for anything signed on the company's behalf, before it is needed. If the fortnight has already started, A distressed pharmacy: what to do in the first fortnight is the order to do things in.

RSB Consulting is not an insolvency practitioner, a solicitor, an accountant or a lender, and does not hold itself out as any of them: only a licensed practitioner may take an appointment, your solicitor and accountant confirm the legal and financial position, and the integrated care board and the General Pharmaceutical Council decide what they decide. Pharmacy insolvency and distressed pharmacies is the pharmacy-side work. If an appointment has been made or is being discussed, tell us where you are.

Sources. The 2013 Regulations, regulations 26, 67A, 75, 76 and 82 to 84 · Schedule B1, Insolvency Act 1986 · Section 74H, Medicines Act 1968 · NHS England's Pharmacy Manual, Chapter 38

Rajkamal Singh Bhatti MPharm is a practising pharmacist (GPhC registration 2230365) and a former Superintendent Pharmacist of a national group of 120 branches, which he took through insolvency and sale. He founded RSB Consulting.