As of December 2024, Boots has 2,000 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland ranging from local pharmacies to large health and beauty shops.

It sells many health and beauty products, and also provides optician and hearing care services within shops and as standalone practices.

[11] Boots diversified into the research and manufacturing of drugs with its development of the Ibuprofen painkiller during the 1960s, invented by John Nicholson and Stewart Adams.

[13] The withdrawal from market of Manoplax due to safety concerns in 1993, caused major pressure from investors, and in 1994, Boots divested its prescription drugs division, which had become no longer viable, to BASF.

Most Canadian Boots shops were converted to Pharma Plus in 1989, after sale to Oshawa Group, although a handful of locations remained as late as 1993, if not later.

[21] Boots also made a venture into "Wellbeing" services offering customers treatments ranging from facials, homoeopathy, and nutritional advice to laser eye surgery and Botox but these services were abandoned in 2003, despite a launch that included a dedicated Freeview and Sky TV channel of the same name, and even redirecting web traffic from boots.com to wellbeing.com[22] In late 2004, Boots sold its laser eye surgery business to Optical Express.

[28] In June 2012, it was announced that Walgreens, the United States' largest chemist chain, would purchase a 45% stake in Alliance Boots for US$6.7 billion.

In August 2012, Boots began stocking convenience food products from Irish retailer Musgrave's SuperValu chain.

7[50] Refine & Rewind Beauty Serum stimulated the production of fibrillin-1 and appeared to smooth out wrinkles, (published in the British Journal of Dermatology).

[52][59] In 2009, Boots Superintendent Pharmacist Paul Bennett was interviewed by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee about the company's sale of homeopathic medicines.

He told the committee that the company had no evidence to suggest that homeopathic medicines are efficacious but Boots sold them anyway, for reasons of "consumer choice".

[63][64] In April 2016, the Pharmacists' Defence Association stated that company managers were exploiting the NHS by insisting that each outlet carry out medicine use reviews, even if patients did not need them.

[67] Four days later it published an article with emails from some pharmacists who had written about how "the chain allegedly compels staff to compromise ethics for targets".

[69][70] The Guardian subsequently noted a letter purporting to be from an "independent pharmacist" criticising its stance on the issue which it identified as having been edited and amended by one of the firm's vice-presidents.

One of the whistleblowers, who had formerly worked in a patient safety role, stated that Boots had calculated that in excess of £100m additional investment in staffing was required each year in its pharmacies and to meet the company's expectations of its staff.

However, in July 2018, it was reported that an error had occurred in 2016 in which two lots of the same medicines were dispensed and supplied to the same patient, Richard Lee, who subsequently died.

[79][80] In July 2017, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) revealed that Boots was selling emergency contraceptive medication at four times the cost price and had refused requests to join rival pharmacy retail chains, including Superdrug and Tesco, which had agreed to cease profiting financially in this way.

[81] In a written response to BPAS, Boots revealed that they were frequently contacted by individuals who disapproved of the dispensing of such medication, which might be viewed as "incentivising inappropriate use",[82][83] an assertion which campaigners described as "insulting and sexist".

Following the boycott's launch, lawyers representing Boots alleged that the online complaint form created by BPAS had resulted in a "torrent of abuse" to five of Boots' senior managers and that BPAS had facilitated and tacitly encouraged harassment by naming individual staff members on the form.

[85] In November 2017, more than 130 Labour politicians signed a letter criticising Boots' failure to fulfil its promise to stock a low-cost alternative in its shops by October.

[87] Throughout the media coverage, a May–July 2017, pricelist from its wholesaler and sister company Alliance Healthcare stated that the "Normal Retail Price inc. VAT" of Levonelle One Step was £12.72.

[88] On 25 October 2017, a debate was held in the House of Commons about pharmacists' mental health and the support that employers give to employees.

In response, a spokesman for Walgreens Boots Alliance rejected accusations of overcharging the NHS and said that the bespoke nature of the orders, often requested at short notice, results in the high cost.