Thread by @EinsteinsAttic

OK, let's take look at @RoyalMail #Health (no @Twitter handle as yet):

royalmail.com/health

It's apparently "a new #business division working across the #healthcare industry, including local #pharmacies"...

...though its main partners at this point appear to be @Pharmacy2U - of which more later - and "exciting new service" #Charac, an app & #SaaS platform which advertises on @facebook, @instagram and @LinkedIn but again doesn't (yet) have a @Twitter handle:

charac.co.uk

...that's 👆 #Charac's front page, BTW; the pitch it makes to #pharmacies themselves 👇 is somewhat different:

charac.co.uk/pharmacies/

I dunno about you, but "Creating new ways to make more money that isn’t dependent on NHS finance" sounds a lot like #marketing to patients...

Now let me be clear: #pharmacies are businesses, they've always sold other stuff, and helping patients get their #prescriptions more easily is a good thing.

BUT there are ways to do this, and ways NOT to do this - which brings me back to "the nation's largest online pharmacy"...

The history of @Pharmacy2U is long and checkered. By its founder's own admission, when he first set it up in 1999 it was #illegal to send medicines through the post:

medium.com/authority-maga…

Our first direct run-in with @Pharmacy2U was in 2015 when, after years of receiving complaints from patients about being #marketed about their specific conditions and diagnoses, we complained to @ICOnews and @TheGPhC.

The subsequent investigations uncovered that #Pharmacy2U...

...had sold NHS patients' information to some real unsavourables 👇

@Pharmacy2U, at that point part-owned by @EMISHealth, was fined £130,000 by @ICOnews; its commercial director was suspended for 3 months by @TheGPhC & its founder was given a warning...

medconfidential.org/2015/uks-large…

...which you can read about here:

medconfidential.org/wp-content/upl…

and here:

pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/p…

Oh, and @EMISGroup took its Director off @Pharmacy2U's Board and sold its shareholding in the company for £1.5 million:

emisgroupplc.com/media/1301/emi… (p5)

As is the way of the world, @Pharmacy2U was picked up by #PrivateEquity (first @BGFinvestments, then #GSquareCapital) but struggled to make any profit, and kept making missteps* - so this @RoyalMail Health deal must be a bit of a godsend!

__
*e.g. express.co.uk/news/uk/829082…

It remains to be seen what'll happen now @RoyalMail has lent its muscle. For patients' sake, one must hope the activities of its partners will be much better #regulated.

And we still believe only a #criminal ban on #marketing to patients will prevent crooks #preying on patients.

As did @TheBMA:

gponline.com/bma-calls-jail…