Hi! My name is Nathan and I am the Welfare, Community and Diversity Officer at UEA Students' Union.

 In July 2023, Boots withdrew from running the pharmacy on the UEA campus. This left 17 thousand students without a designated pharmacy, alongside many vulnerable members of our local community. By ending the contract in the summer, this left new students unaware that the university they applied to no longer had the services that were advertised. 

Since then I have been campaigning to open a new independent pharmacy, and have worked with an applicant pharmacist to collect student data and boost the argument for a new pharmacy.

The pharmacy application process is slow at best and gruellingly painful at the worst, and so in the meantime I compiled a set of key pharmaceutical information for students.




We began working with our local MP Clive Lewis on potential solutions to the lack of services, and we decided to do two campaigns: Clive's targeted the local community, using his offices administrative capabilities to send survey letters to local residents, and ours targeted students, using social media and our communal spaces to push both an online petition and direct responses to the NHS decision making body.


The campaigns received great support! Clive collated lots of very useful responses from residents, and we received almost 700 signatures to our petition and many answers directly to the decision making body.

And... it was a success! (Despite a few bureaucratical hiccups) We managed to get the pharmacy application the support it needed to be approved first time round. Usually applications have to be submitted and resubmitted a silly amount of times, so it really highlighted the strength of our campaign and the need for a pharmacy in our local area.

However... 

Allied Pharmacies, a huge national company, is currently blocking the application. They have appealed the application on the grounds that it might affect their pharmacy in Earlham West, which is at least twenty minute walk from campus and even more if you are coming from the Avenues/Colman Road/Bluebell Road.

They say it'll hurt their profits - we say we don't care about their profits! Students shouldn't lose out on important medical services just because a corporation thinks it will make less money.

Now, we need your help to make a difference!

We ask you to take action by sending an email to Allied Pharmacies, urging them to withdraw their appeal and support the establishment of a much-needed pharmacy at the UEA Medical Centre.

Your voice matters, and by taking a few moments to email Allied Pharmacy, you can contribute to ensuring that essential healthcare services are accessible to all members of our community, especially those with long-term health conditions and protected characteristics such as disabilities.

Sending the email is only one click away...

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