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An online pharmacy headquartered in Wakefield has failed in its appeal to have a breach notice overturned after it was found to have offered face-to-face services and sold OTC medicines from its premises. 

NHS Resolution told Eastmoor Online Pharmacy on September 18 that its appeal had been dismissed and West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board’s (ICB) decision from May 2026 to issue a breach notice upheld.

This followed site visits by the ICB and correspondence with the pharmacy “to understand patient access to the premises and the provision of pharmaceutical services”.

Allegations were first raised with the ICB in August 2025, the same month Eastmoor Online Pharmacy was first included on the pharmaceutical list as a distance-selling pharmacy (DSP). The premises on Windhill Road had previously been operated by Boots as a community pharmacy.

The ICB said a pharmacist had told it “that patients were accessing Eastmoor Online Pharmacy, buying over the counter (OTC) medicine, collecting prescriptions and that the neighbouring Eastmoor Health Centre were directing patients to the pharmacy”. Since October 2025, online pharmacies have been barred from providing face-to-face services from their main premises. 

Similar allegations were subsequently raised with the ICB by neighbouring contractors in October. When the ICB visited the pharmacy on December 10, it found that the door was open to the public and the frontage gave “the appearance of a pharmacy providing NHS services that people can walk in to,” while the shelves inside contained “household items and GSL medicines”.

Three patients visited the pharmacy while the ICB inspector was present. The superintendent pharmacist said the consultation room was used for private services and as an office.

A subsequent re-inspection in February 2026 found that numerous steps had been taken, such as the windows being frosted and NHS posters removed, but that “there were still patients accessing the premises despite the door being always locked and the doorbell being installed”.

The ICB told Eastmoor Online Pharmacy in May this year that it was “satisfied that all reasonable steps” had been taken to resolve the issue, including OTC medicines being removed from that pharmacy in January 2026, but that it was “necessary to issue a breach notice to secure resolution”.

Appealing the decision in June, the pharmacy said there were “no specific recent incidents” that might suggest breaches of the distance selling premises regulations were still occurring and that in its view the decision to issue a breach notice without first carrying out a confirmatory re-inspection was “disproportionate”.

But siding with the ICB’s decision, NHS Resolution’s head of appeals stated: “The appellant’s subsequent cooperation and remedial action do not, of themselves, undermine the basis on which the breach notice was issued.”

Eastmoor Online Pharmacy has been approached for comment.

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