Morrisons has reportedly begun selling off parts of its pharmacy estate as it looks to streamline and focus on its core grocery operations.

The company has been seeking buyers for dozens of its in-store pharmacies, with sites being sold on a branch-by-branch basis rather than as part of a single portfolio deal.

The move follows a review of the pharmacy operation, which found a number of branches would be better suited to operating as community pharmacies under independent ownership.

Pharmacies included in the disposal process are expected to continue trading from Morrisons stores, although under their new owners’ branding.

It first confirmed plans to offload a significant part of the estate earlier this year as chief executive Rami Baitiéh pushed ahead with a wider programme to simplify the business and improve its financial position.

Morrisons has already made sweeping changes across its store estate, including shutting cafés, Market Kitchens, convenience stores, florists and selected fresh food counters as part of its optimisation programme.

The supermarket has been aggressively cutting costs under Baitiéh, with savings since the start of its turnaround programme reaching £995m following a further £53m reduction during its latest quarter.

Like-for-like sales across the group rose 3.2 per cent in the 13 weeks to 26 July, marking its fifteenth consecutive quarter of growth, while total sales reached £4.1bn.

Baitiéh said earlier this month that improvements across supermarkets, online, convenience, pharmacy and its Myton manufacturing arm demonstrated the progress being made in the retailer’s efforts to “renew and modernise Morrisons”.

Morrisons initially put dozens of pharmacies on the market in February after concluding that several were no longer financially viable under its ownership.

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