UK digital pharmacy, Pharmacy2U, has announced that it is acquiring Care Quality Pharmacy, a provider focusing on care homes, in what will be its “first step into the care home pharmacy sector”.
Care Quality Pharmacy offers prescriptions and services to a range of care homes, care services, and care agencies. It also covers services including paper based and electronic MAR charts (eMAR), care planning integrations, and eLearning.
The CEO of Pharmacy2U highlighted the care home sector as a “natural extension”, adding: “This acquisition is an important step in delivering Pharmacy2U’s growth strategy and is fully aligned with our approach of partnering with high-quality businesses that leverage our scale and core competencies. I look forward to supporting the team as they continue to deliver excellent care and service to their customers and patients.”
Usman Tahir, the managing director of Care Quality Pharmacy, also spoke of “delight” at partnering with Pharmacy2U, saying: “With such a broad range of needs, it’s critical that care providers are fully serving the medical needs of their residents, and we take pride in giving our customers absolute confidence every single day. This marks an important milestone for our business, and I look forward to accelerating our growth even further this year.”
Care Quality Pharmacy is the latest in a series of recent acquisitions made by Pharmacy2U, which have included Lloyds Direct, Lloyds Pharmacy Online Doctor, and Medicines Management Solutions.
Wider trend: Digital pharmacy
The Government of Ireland has shared its Community Pharmacy Agreement 2025, outlining digital priorities across pharmacy IT integration, e-prescribing, data sharing, and vendor engagement, with a view to ensuring “community pharmacists are better equipped to contribute to national health priorities”. Pharmacy IT systems should be ready to integrate with core national digital assets such as the national shared care record and e-prescribing service, the government notes, as “the success depends on pharmacy’s ability to connect securely, share data in structured and coded formats, and do so in real time”.
An innovation partnership supporting the future of general practice sees OX.DH partner with FDB (First Databank) to shape medicines intelligence in primary care. The collaboration brings together Oxford Digital Health’s 100% cloud-native technology and FDB’s new Multilex Cloud capabilities into OX.DH’s clinical system for primary care. Tech provider OX.DH’s primary care solution compliance with the NHS England Tech Innovation Framework delivers a modern, intuitive primary care solution. As part of accelerating modernisation, the new partnership streamlines medicines data management and prescribing, with the partnership commenting that this is “a major step forward in driving safer, more connected, and more efficient healthcare”.
University Hospitals of Liverpool Group has shared “significant progress” around digital medicines infrastructure at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, highlighting a large-scale EPMA upgrade, the rollout of EPMA in emergency departments, the deployment of automated drug cabinets, and the implementation of the Philips ICCA EPR in critical care. The digital medicines team’s portfolio includes the EPMA and its web portal, the Careflow pharmacy stock control system, and medicines automation. A visit from the NHS England digital medicines team earlier in 2025 reportedly offered positive feedback, specifically on local data-driven initiatives and the Time Critical Medicines Dashboard.
