EAST Surrey Hospital has come under fire for striking a deal with Boots which bars patients from using any other pharmacy.
Outpatient prescriptions can only be dispensed from the new Boots branch inside the hospital, which opened in October.
Formerly, patients were issued with a normal green prescription sheet which could be redeemed at any pharmacy.
Now, they are handed a grey form exclusively for use at the hospital site.
If particular medication is not in stock, it can only be forwarded to other "selected" Boots stores for collection.
The hospital says it has improved the service, that prescriptions are being turned round within 10 minutes, and that patients are happy.
However, furious independent pharmacists have slammed the "monopoly" deal.
One, who works in Redhill and asked not to be named, heard about the new regime from customers.
"It is really terrible," she said. "It is taking away patients' choice. How can they be allowed to do this?
"We have had at least a dozen of our customers come in over the last couple of weeks who are really angry because they want to bring their prescriptions here.
"I have had patients bring the grey form here. They want to get their medication from me and I cannot give it to them.
"And if the hospital doesn't have it, they have to go back and pay to park all over again. I think it is awful."
Another Redhill pharmacist, who also asked to remain anonymous, said: "All the chemists around here used to get a lot of business.
"Where is the patient choice? Is this even legal?"
And the pharmacist at Raimins in Pollards Oak Road, Oxted, said: "A GP cannot tell his patients where to go for their prescriptions – it is up to the patient. That is the way it should be at hospitals too.
"I think it is very, very wrong. The hospital must have struck an exclusive deal with Boots."
David Heller, chief pharmacist at East Surrey, said: "Over the past two years, to release our pharmacy team to focus on the medicine needs for our inpatients and for those going home, we have given our outpatients external prescriptions.
"This costs the hospital more and the prescriptions were going to a range of pharmacies, many of whom did not know our prescribers. The pharmacy often received the prescription one or more days after it was written, so a consultant was not available."
