Charity criticises Boots UK for Black Friday morning after pill offer

Boots UK has been criticised by a women's health charity for offering a 50% discount on the morning after pill as part of its Black Friday sales.

The UK retailer's website published an advert today (26 November) enabling customers to save up to £28.25 on emergency contraception using a Black Friday code.

Speaking to The Pharmacist today, Katherine O’Brien, associate director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said the deal felt ‘tasteless’ and ‘very wrong’.

The deal also ‘exposes’ the ‘massive profit’ Boots are making on the product, she suggested.

This comes after the BPAS had urged pharmacists to cut the cost of EHC amid claims that British women are forced to pay up to five times more than those in Europe for the contraceptive.

Boots UK was offering a range of options for emergency contraception (EHC) online today, priced from £15.99 to £56.50. The half-price offer is running from 26 November until 30 November 2021.

After screenshots of the advert were circulated online, thousands of people commented on Twitter about the deal, calling it ‘tone deaf’ and ‘gross’.

‘When you add these profit margins to a medication you effectively price some women out of being able to access it,’ claimed Ms O’Brien.

A spokesperson from Boots told The Pharmacist: ‘This is a promotion running on our Online Doctor service. The offer is 50% off all men's and women's healthcare services’.

In 2018, Boots UK reduced the price of its generic brand of levonorgestrel from £26.75 to £15.99.