A branch of Superdrug is to merge with an independent pharmacy this month in a move that will see the multiple’s patients and staff transfer over to the latter.

The branch, which was situated in the Westmorland Shopping Centre in Kendal, is set to close its doors after Ishaq Ali, the superintendent pharmacist at Gillinggate Pharmacy, successfully applied for an NHS consolidation application.

He told The Westmorland Gazette that four staff from the Superdrug store are expected to move to his pharmacy. The newspaper reported that 1,500 patients will also be taken on by Gillinggate Pharmacy as a result of the move.

“We submitted an NHS consolidation application which means their premises would close and all the patients would transfer over to our store and that’s along with the staff as well,” Mr Ali was quoted as saying in The Westmorland Gazette, adding that the consolidation will produce “one big super pharmacy.”

He claimed Superdrug approached him before he applied for the consolidation. When asked by Independent Community Pharmacist why it approached Mr Ali and why it felt it could not continue running its Westmorland Shopping Centre branch, Superdrug declined to respond.