Pharmacy 'owes thousands' to community centre

The pharmacy building has sat empty ever since Jhoots' eviction

A community centre says it can no longer afford to run an apprenticeship scheme for residents as it is owed thousands of pounds by pharmacy chain Jhoots.

Victoria Park Community Centre in Bridgwater, Somerset, rented one of its buildings to Jhoots last year, but evicted the company after it failed to pay several months' rent.

It comes with Jhoots already facing allegations of not paying staff at some pharmacies and failing to supply customers with their medication at branches across the country.

The company has said that the trading name Jhoots is used by several independent companies with their own management and procedures.

The government has warned that Jhoots could lose its rights to dispense NHS prescriptions following complaints made against the chain.

Across the UK there are 153 Jhoots pharmacies registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council, all owned at least in part by either Sarbjit Jhooty or Manjit Jhooty.

Manjit has previously told the BBC his branches remain "fully functional and continue to deliver services to the communities they serve".

The allegations in this article relate to the Bridgwater pharmacy managed by Sarbjit, who has previously confirmed he operated independently from Manjit.

Sarbjit has previously admitted "workforce and recruitment challenges" across the South West, but has not responded to these latest allegations related to Bridgwater.

Victoria Park Community Centre's management decided to evict Jhoots after the company failed to pay £3,500 in rent, covering the period from October to December 2024.

Jhoots has still not paid the invoice, leaving the community centre team to employ lawyers to try and force payment.

Documents seen by the BBC show the centre has spent £5,000 on legal fees trying to recoup the money.

'Syringes left behind'

Centre staff say that Jhoots left its stock behind, meaning they had to do much of the clean-up.

Victoria Park centre manager Laura Fowler said: "The stock was all on the shelves. The till was still there with the computers and you know the equipment...and syringes for doing flu jabs and all those sorts of things were just left."

Dozens of now empty folders, which once were full of pharmacy paperwork, also remain.

"I think in total the financial impact of everything that's happened with the pharmacy and how it's been left is going to cost us in the region of £25,000 if not more," said Ms Fowler.

"We're going to have to cut our costs. We are affected by the cost of living just like all other businesses so things were already tight but when you take out a main income source you have to find ways of dealing with that.

"We started an apprenticeship programme that was going really well, we've had some really good successes.

"[But] we simply can't afford to do it anymore and that's a huge shame for local people."

Laura Fowler says her team had to clear out all the pharmacy stock left behind

Although the pharmacy has gone, the community centre - a registered charity - offers support for residents in various other forms including a food bank known as 'The Local Pantry', dance and martial arts classes and obesity, smoking and bereavement support groups.

Chair of the board of trustees Mick Lerry said the centre's vision was to help people with the skills needed for employment.

"So we offer opportunities and most of those opportunities go to women returning or coming back into the world of work," he said.

"What this means is that we've been able to actually, in the past, recruit people and see them through their apprenticeships so they can actually move on to full-time employment or other types of employment."

Because the centre is run on a not-for-profit basis, Mr Lerry said it worked to a tight budget.

"We don't hold an awful lot of reserves because we should be spending that money on the people here and therefore because we've lost income it has meant that our expenditure has to be looked at a little bit tighter for the following year," he said.

"At the moment it's [the apprenticeship scheme] being paused. We're putting it on hold simply because we need to have the confidence that we've got the funding."

Laura Fowler says the situation has cost the community centre about £25,000 so far

"It's been hugely stressful for the whole team," Ms Fowler added.

"We got complaints as well from people going over to community centre saying 'oh there's not a pharmacist again, what happened?'

"They've had to deal with that impact and you know, as a community centre I think we go out of our way to to be as helpful as possible to people and this really let us down to be honest."

Sarbjit Jhooty has previously admitted problems at his branches and blamed "workforce and recruitment challenges" which he said had been a problem in the South West "for many years".

However, the BBC has not yet received a response when it approached Sarbjit about the unpaid rent at Victoria Park and the wider allegations of staff not being paid at other branches.