A struggling national pharmacy chain accused of owing its locums £670,000 in unpaid fees has been hit with an application to place the business into insolvency proceedings.
Jhoots Chemist, which trades under the name of Jhoots Pharmacy, was named in a high court application to appoint an administrator, submitted on Monday by Lloyds Bank.
The move comes after the company – which has run more than 100 outlets – was criticised in the autumn by MPs for not paying locum pharmacists who had worked at the company’s branches on a freelance basis. The chain is run from Walsall in the West Midlands by a businessman called Sarbjit Singh Jhooty.
In an urgent parliamentary debate about the status of the group in October, MPs raised concerns…