Pharmacy group
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Knights Chemist Limited runs a network of 24 branches across 6 integrated care boards. Dispensed 3.0m NHS items in the last 12 months, up 12.2% on the prior year. Estimated annual NHS income from dispensing and advanced services is around £9.4m. Heavily concentrated in Birmingham and Solihull ICB (10 of 24 branches, 42%). Deeply engaged with advanced services — nearly every branch is active, averaging 5.2 of 6 service lines. Parent company has been incorporated for more than 40 years (since 1985).
A step-change usually marks an acquisition; a steady slope is organic trade. The Pharmacy First launch in January 2024 shows up across most groups.
100-hour contracts carry higher opening-hour commitments for a higher core NHS fee. Distance-selling pharmacies fulfil prescriptions by post only — no walk-in customers.
Knights Chemist Limited is modestly over-indexed to deprived communities (+13pp). National baseline: exactly 30% of LSOAs sit in the most-deprived third, so that's the neutral line.
Least-deprived third: 26% · middle: 30%
Each coloured segment is one of the ten IMD deciles (segment widths scale with branch counts). Red = most-deprived communities; green = least-deprived. A heavy red-weighted bar reads as “serves deprived communities” — a meaningful operator identity in a sector where historical contract allocation concentrated pharmacies in low-income areas.
Half of Knights Chemist Limited’s 24 reporting branches sit above the 32th national percentile for combined service engagement (NMS, Pharmacy First, BP, DMS, contraception, flu per 1,000 items). 0 branches beat the national median; 24 sit below.
Long-running appointments suggest a stable owner-operator. A cluster of resignations or a short director pattern can indicate a recent change in control, a restructure, or onboarding of external investors.
| # | Location | ICB | 12-month trend | Items (12m) | 6-mo Δ | Services |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oxfordshire · OX16 3WT | Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICB (C 02-Apr-26) | 240.1k | +1% | 6 / 6 | |
| 2 | Worcestershire · B61 8DA | Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 188.7k | +24% |
Group identity reconciled from NHSBSA Contractor Details using legal-entity name, enriched with Companies House registry data for the top 100 corporate groups. Dispensing aggregated across every branch currently owned by the group. Officer tenure and SIC codes sourced live from Companies House under Crown Copyright.
Estimate derived from published NHS fee rates: £2.85/item (SAF + professional fee), £28/NMS, £35/DMS, £17/Pharmacy First, £15/BP check, £18/contraception consultation; flu uses actual £ fees published per dose. Category M reimbursement, establishment payment, transitional payment, PQS banding and the £1,000 Pharmacy First monthly fixed fee are all excluded. Private and locally-commissioned income is not included.
Each cell is one month. Darker cells mean more branches joined the network that month. Evenly-spaced light cells suggest organic growth or absorption by transfer; concentrated hot cells mark discrete acquisitions.
Emerald shading is national pharmacy density; amber outlines flag hexes containing a Knights Chemist Limited branch. Lets you read regional strategy at a glance — clustered around a few cities, broadly distributed, or concentrated in one corner of the country.
Each sparkline shows one branch's 12-month items trend. The percentage is the six-month change (last six vs prior six months); it's coloured green when the branch is growing by 3%+, red when declining by 3%+, neutral otherwise. Shapes that cluster tightly suggest a homogeneous chain; wide variation points to an acquired portfolio of independents. Click any card for its profile.
Each dot is one branch. The vertical line is the median 12-month items in this network; the horizontal line is flat (0%) trend. Quadrants are descriptive, not judgemental: a smaller-volume branch can be entirely appropriate where it serves a small or remote population. Commissioners and operators typically look at the lower-left quadrant as an early-warning area. Click any dot for the branch profile.
Each cell is the branch's year-on-year % items change for that month — red for decline, stone for flat, green for growth, capped at ±25%. A branch that turns red and stays red is a genuine contractor; a stone band is stable; an intermittent amber-to-green ramp signals recovery. Rows are ordered by 12-month volume — the right-hand number is items dispensed in the last 12 months, coloured red/green by the branch's 6-month trend so growth and decline are visible at both granularities.
| 5 / 6 |
| 3 | B31 3JW | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 176.5k | +3% | 5 / 6 |
| 4 | Worcestershire · B98 0NR | Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 172.7k | +2% | 6 / 6 |
| 5 | West Midlands · B17 9DB | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 161.4k | +7% | 5 / 6 |
| 6 | Worcestershire · B97 5JB | Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 152.8k | +4% | 5 / 6 |
| 7 | NN3 8AW | Northamptonshire ICB | 145.3k | +2% | 6 / 6 |
| 8 | Warwickshire · B80 7QU | Coventry and Warwickshire ICB | 138.0k | +0% | 5 / 6 |
| 9 | West Midlands · B32 4HD | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 137.5k | +2% | 5 / 6 |
| 10 | B45 9HY | Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 133.7k | +1% | 6 / 6 |
| 11 | West Midlands · DY1 2ER | Black Country ICB | 126.6k | -0% | 6 / 6 |
| 12 | B61 0DD | — | 122.6k | +6% | 6 / 6 |
| 13 | B31 1QT | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 117.2k | -4% | 5 / 6 |
| 14 | West Midlands · B93 8JA | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 114.1k | +40% | 4 / 6 |
| 15 | West Midlands · B93 0LN | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 110.5k | +8% | 4 / 6 |
| 16 | Northamptonshire · NN6 7RR | Northamptonshire ICB | 110.0k | +4% | 5 / 6 |
| 17 | Worcestershire · B61 0JZ | Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 106.5k | +7% | 5 / 6 |
| 18 | B37 7BA | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 95.2k | +2% | 5 / 6 |
| 19 | Northamptonshire · NN7 4PN | Northamptonshire ICB | 93.4k | +2% | 6 / 6 |
| 20 | B31 4LJ | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 92.1k | +9% | 5 / 6 |
| 21 | B32 3LE | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 83.8k | +4% | 5 / 6 |
| 22 | West Midlands · B95 5AZ | Coventry and Warwickshire ICB | 83.3k | +15% | 5 / 6 |
| 23 | B31 3JP | Birmingham and Solihull ICB | 78.0k | +15% | 5 / 6 |
| 24 | Worcestershire · B96 6AA | Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB | 68.7k | +12% | 5 / 6 |