Exempt pharmacy contract applications include the following types of pharmacies: 100 hours, Internet, One Stop and pharmacies in large Shopping Centres
The above categories of contract application are by definition exempt from the normal requirement for an applicant to prove to a Primary Care Trust (PCT) that there is a need for an additional pharmacy in a neighbourhood. The main category of exempt application that seems to be causing the most trouble to existing contractors is 100 hour applications.
My advice to existing contractors is to work with your LPC and PCT to get some LPS services going in your neighbourhood, because once these are approved and near to being launched, the PCT can legitimately refuse 100 hour contract applications, to protect the embryonic LPS scheme/s.
Even if such LPS schemes have not yet been started, the PCT can defer 100 hour applications received within 120 days prior to an LPS designation, so it may still be possible to get an LPS scheme started within this period of grace, as long as you act without delay
If you have received notification of a non-exempt contract application, the defences available are more numerous and more complex. I will write about this another time.