PharmSee's branch-level pharmacy atlas has, until now, covered cities from Plymouth to Newcastle without any south-coast representation between Bristol and Brighton. The addition of Southampton (SO14) and Portsmouth (PO1) fills this geographic gap — and reveals two cities with markedly different pharmacy-estate signatures sitting just 20 miles apart.

The headline numbers

Both cities have GP-to-pharmacy ratios below 1.0, suggesting a relatively well-served pharmacy landscape by the standards of PharmSee's atlas. For comparison, Liverpool runs at 1.42:1 and Leicester at 1.16:1.

Southampton: the Lloyds register burden

Southampton's 3-mile ring contains nine Lloyds contractor codes, none of which record dispensing activity in the most recent NHSBSA quarterly dataset. This is consistent with the Lloyds exit pattern PharmSee has documented across English city cores — the former Lloyds estate left contractor codes on the NHS Digital register that have not been pruned despite recording no recent dispensing.

Nine ghost Lloyds codes in a 55-pharmacy ring means 16.4% of Southampton's registered pharmacy estate shows no recent dispensing data from the Lloyds exit alone. Adjusting for these codes gives an effective pharmacy count of approximately 46, producing a corrected ratio of 0.98:1 — substantially higher than the raw 0.82:1 and more consistent with the true availability of dispensing services.

This finding is relevant in the context of ongoing NHS efforts to improve access to urgent care. The UK government recently announced specialist teams being deployed to reduce corridor care and cut waiting times at the most affected hospital trusts. Community pharmacy's role in diverting minor-illness consultations from A&E departments depends on accurate mapping of where operating pharmacies are located — and register inflation from non-operating Lloyds codes can overstate local capacity.

Portsmouth: a cleaner register

Portsmouth PO1 3mi contains 40 pharmacies with only one Lloyds code (also with no recent dispensing data). The register distortion is minimal — 2.5% versus Southampton's 16.4%.

Four Boots branches operate in the ring, all recording dispensing activity:

Portsmouth's Boots operating average of £54,100 is the lowest PharmSee has measured in any English city — below Birmingham B1's £55,435. The Fratton branch at £25,052 is among the lowest-revenue operating Boots branches in the atlas.

Southampton's Boots estate

Southampton's seven operating Boots branches tell a different story:

The Above Bar Street flagship (FF708, £232,115) is the standout — a revenue level that places it in the upper tier of Boots city-centre branches nationally. Excluding the flagship, the remaining six branches average approximately £87,796 — still above Portsmouth's entire four-branch average.

Independent pharmacies

Both cities follow the independent-majority pattern documented across PharmSee's atlas:

Southampton also has four Day Lewis branches — the first significant Day Lewis presence PharmSee has documented in a city-core audit, reflecting the chain's historic concentration in southern England.

What the south-coast pair adds to the atlas

Southampton and Portsmouth together confirm two patterns from PharmSee's northern and midlands audits:

1. The Lloyds ghost pattern extends to the south coast. Southampton's nine non-operating Lloyds codes are consistent with Birmingham (7), Sheffield (11), Newcastle (9), and Liverpool (2). The 2023 Lloyds exit left a national register footprint.

1. Independent-majority holds everywhere. Portsmouth at 60% independent and Southampton at 51% extend the universal finding that no English city-core is chain-majority.

The new data point is the Boots revenue contrast: Southampton's £108,413 average versus Portsmouth's £54,100 is the widest within-region Boots divergence PharmSee has measured — wider than Birmingham vs Dudley (£55,435 vs £108,906), which sit 9 miles apart in the West Midlands.

Caveats

All revenue figures are derived from PharmSee's analysis of publicly available NHSBSA dispensing data. Contractor codes with no recent dispensing activity may reflect reporting lag, temporary closure, or operational change. The 3-mile radius from SO14 7DU and PO1 2AH respectively may not correspond to actual patient travel patterns. Southampton's ring extends into the New Forest (Hythe, SO45) and Portsmouth's catches Gosport (PO12), which are distinct residential areas. PharmSee's pharmacy register covers England only.

Search Southampton and Portsmouth pharmacies with PharmSee's analytics tool, or explore pharmacy salary data for the South East.

Sources: NHSBSA dispensing contractor records; GOV.UK "NHS experts deployed to tackle corridor care" (11 April 2026); PharmSee database (13,147 pharmacies, 5.3M+ dispensing records, 35 months of data).