HAMISH ROBERTSON: The plan by supermarket chain Woolworths to introduce 100 pharmacy outlets, but without pharmacists, in stores across the country, has small business groups wondering where the giant retailer will stop.

Woolworths Chief Executive, Roger Corbett, says it's time that consumers decided where to buy their healthcare products . And he hopes to have one store complete with a qualified pharmacist inside a supermarket within a year.

The move into the health and beauty market follows a push by Woolworths to take on a string of sectors normally seen as the domain of small business – including petrol stations and liquor stores.

Julia Limb reports.

JULIA LIMB: Under the current laws pharmacies must be owned by pharmacists. This gives them the right to handle registered stock and drugs of addiction. And according to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, most of their income is from the sale of medications listed on the Federal Government's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

So the president of the guild, John Bronger, says he is surprised by Woolworths chief Roger Corbett's plan to set up 100 in-store pharmacies which have no pharmacist.

JOHN BRONGER: What Roger said was to develop a pharmacy that has got everything except the pharmacist, and that's just amazing to us, it's a bit of an oxymoron, because, you know, unless you've got a pharmacist and the pharmacist owns the pharmacy, at the moment there's about 75 to 80 per cent of the products that can't be carried.

JULIA LIMB: John Bronger says that pharmacies are in the business of delivering healthcare with personal service, and it's unlikely that qualified pharmacists would want to give up their own business to work for a supermarket, which is the long-term proposal by Woolworths.

JOHN BRONGER: Well, they'd have to persuade a pharmacist to relocate his business inside the pharmacy, and then he'd have to agree to Woolworths basically controlling what he's doing and, you know, look, most pharmacists I know have spent, well, currently it's five years to get qualified as a pharmacist, I can't see them then taking direction on, you know, what they're going to recommend for people's health by a supermarket.

JULIA LIMB: But Woolworth CEO Roger Corbett told ABC television's Business Breakfast program he believes it's time to open up the pharmacy industry and let the consumers decide.

ROGER CORBETT: Well, forthwith, we're going to roll out 100 non-pharmacist pharmacies, if I could use it that way. We've experimented with a range of, as wide a range of health and beauty and other items that we can, that we can sell without a pharmacist.

And we've experimented with those in two stores. We've delivered to our customers excellent ranges and great value, and they like it, and we're going to roll that out forthwith to another 100 stores across Australia. We're going to try, in the next 12 months, for a pharmacist operating and practicing in one of those stores.

JULIA LIMB: Roger Corbett makes no apologies about the retailer's moves into traditional small business areas like butchers, petrol stations and now chemists.

ROGER CORBETT: Well, then why does the small butcher shops, the small bread shops and the small green grocers want to be outside a Woolworths store?

JULIA LIMB: Because if you can't beat em' join them?

ROGER CORBETT: Indeed. So why not the pharmacist as well? And why not let the customers choose? Why have rules and regulations that tell the customers where they can shop?

JULIA LIMB: But the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia claims the plan is yet another blow for consumers and their communities.

Chief Executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Mike Potter.

MIKE POTTER: It'll have two major impacts if they go ahead with this plan. First of all, it will hurt the pharmacy industry, therefore we'll have a lot of small businesses will disappear, but more importantly it'll have a huge impact on the community. And one begs the question, if they go into pharmacy today, do we have doctors surgeries in the supermarket tomorrow?

JULIA LIMB: And to Pharmacy Guild of Australia President John Bronger agrees.

JOHN BRONGER: Look, how much more do they want? I mean, really, I mean, I just wonder. I mean, look, no one denies the fact that Woolworths can sell products, and but they're grocers, they're fresh food people, as they say, you know, they're not really in health. I mean, I don't know many pharmacists, I don't know any pharmacists that I've met, who'd want to go into Woolworths, because their product mix isn't conducive to health.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: John Bronger, who's President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. That report by Julia Limb.