Zarah ChoudharyThe National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has advised its 6000 member pharmacies in England to start the process of reducing opening hours and services from 1st April, if no new and sufficient funding is delivered.
The NPA said this is to protect patients, in the absence of a financial settlement that covers a swathe of new costs due to hit pharmacies from the start of next month.
Additional unfunded costs due to hit pharmacies on April 1st include National Insurance, National Living Wage and Business rates, on top of a decade of real terms cuts.
Around 90% of an average pharmacy’s work is funded via the NHS, including dispensing medication and vaccinations.
But although the end of the current financial year is just days away, pharmacies are yet to receive any confirmation of funding for either the 2024/25 or 25/26 financial years that might allow them to avoid service reductions.
Pharmacies have seen around a 40% cut to this funding in real terms since 2017, forcing record numbers to close.
29 have shut since the beginning of the year, with around 1,300 pharmacies shutting since 2017.
The NPA has recommended that its members give notice of reducing opening hours or other services until a funding deal emerges that would allow them to meet additional cost pressures and maintain safe services to patients.
That could involve fewer pharmacies opening in the evenings and at weekends, as well as limiting home deliveries and withdrawing from some locally commissioned schemes like addiction support.
As part of the recommendations, pharmacies will need to give the NHS five weeks’ notice of a change in hours.
Nick Kaye, NPA chair, said: “We are advising our members to reduce their pharmacy opening hours or take other steps to limit costs in the short term, in order to safeguard patient services for the long term.
“This is not a step anyone of us wants to take, but we have been left with little choice because in just two weeks time new business costs will be hitting local NHS pharmacies across the country.
“It is better that we temporarily reduce access in the short term than to let pharmacies collapse altogether under the weight of unsustainable operating costs.”
Kaye continued: “Pharmacies have shut in record numbers and those that are left are hanging on by their fingernails waiting for the delivery of a financial settlement that protects services on which millions of people rely.
“We hope that an offer from the Government emerges by April 1st to cover the additional costs which pharmacies will face and start to plug the huge gap in funding created by 10 years of real terms cuts.
“If pharmacies do not get adequate funding, then patients risk losing access to their local pharmacy altogether, threatening their access to vital medicines and health services.”
