The community pharmacy bodies, along with England's largest pharmacy chains, have urged the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak to resolve fund and workforce crisis
in the sector.
In the joint letter the Chief Executives of Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIMp), Company Chemists' Association (CCA), National Pharmacy Association
(NPA) and Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC), along with Boots, Lloydspharmacy, Well and Rowlands Pharmacy, said they are pleased to see Government
now recognising the key role that community pharmacy' could have in alleviating the strain on other NHS services.
However, the associations also warn that although the sector is ready to support, 'this will not be possible unless pharmacy is properly funded.'
Janet Morrison, PSNC Chief Executive, said: "The Prime Minister should also know that community pharmacies are also facing a crisis. They need sustainable investment,
urgently, if we are to avoid devasting consequences for pharmacies and for their patients."
The letter calls on Government to help pharmacy to resolve the funding, workforce and capacity issues engulfing the sector. It said: "Community pharmacies are in
crisis and after 7 years of 30% funding cuts have reached their limit."
PSNC has urged community pharmacy contractors and LPCs to engage with their local MPs on the immense pressures that pharmacies are facing.
The organisaiton has also published some new resources to help pharmacists in this regard.
"PSNC is deeply aware of the funding crisis affecting the sector and is working hard to increase the pressure on [the] government to act now with an urgent funding
uplift. This has included upping investment in influencing activities and working closely with LPCs to take united action," it said.
PSNC has last month launched its Four Point Plan to safeguard the future of community pharmacy, setting out how pharmacy could be the solution to a number of
problems if, and only if, it is properly funded, resourced and supported.
As pressures continue to mount, further briefings now focus solely on the urgent need to resolve the funding squeeze in order to protect existing pharmacy services.
In a powerful display of unity, thousands of pharmacies across the UK participated in a nationwide protest today, organised by the National Pharmacy
Association (NPA), as part of its #saveourpharmacies campaign.
The NPA's day of action was aimed at drawing attention to the severe crisis in pharmacy funding that has forced 1,400 pharmacies to close over the past decade
and left thousands more struggling.
Participating pharmacies showed their protest through various actions like dimming lights, blacking out their windows, wearing black for the day, or discussing
pharmacy funding with customers. Many pharmacies also seized the opportunity to interact with parliamentary candidate, urging them to address the funding crisis.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) is distributing new campaign materials to pharmacies across England this week to empower them to advocate for fair
funding in the forthcoming general election.
These include campaign posters, stickers, postcards for patients to send to MPs and petition materials.
By supplying these resources, the NPA aims to boost its cross-sector #SaveOurPharmacies campaign and help pharmacies raise local and national awareness of the
funding crisis that is forcing pharmacies to close at the rate of 10 a week.
NPA chief executive Paul Rees said: "Pharmacies are under crushing financial pressure. We want to help them join our efforts to raise the profile of the funding
crisis and make the public and politicians fully aware of the threat to our much-loved pharmacy network.
In an oral parliamentary debate on community pharmacy held on Monday (20 March), the government was asked for an indication of 'how much it would cost to
make the best use of community pharmacies'.
A number of Peers at the House of Lords spoke out in support of pharmacies, while others asked when would the government address the current crisis in the sector.
Kicking off the session, Baroness Hodgson asked the responding minister, Lord Evans, about recent pharmacy closures as well as underfunding. She asked whether the
government would 'enter into discussions with PSNC to look at introducing a fairly funded pharmacy first service as soon as possible which will help relieve the
work load on GPs'.
The minister responded: "We have already introduced and funded a range of service in community pharmacy that make use of the clinical skills of pharmacy teams… we
continue to discuss with PSNC how the government can best support the sector to provide support to patients."
The House of Lords oral questions session was opened by Baroness Hodgson on behalf of Baroness Cumberlege as follows: "To ask His Majesty's Government what plans
they have for making the best use of community pharmacies".
Labour MP Barry Gardiner has raised concerns that the £645 million cash injection announced by the government for community pharmacy is, in effect, 'frozen
funding' for the next two years.
Speaking on Tuesday (May 9) on the BBC's Politics Live, Gardiner said funding for community pharmacies "was cut before 2015, then it was frozen and now the latest
announcement says that it's going to be frozen for a further two years."
He said with a current national contract, which already represented a 25 per cent funding cut in real terms, it was not appropriate to ask for community pharmacy
"to take on more work" without adequate support.
"I heard the prime minister earlier this morning (May 9) on TV saying 'we are investing more in pharmacies'.
"No you are not. You just concluded a contract that says for the next two years it will be absolutely flatlined."
He added that "there will be no more money" for community pharmacy and that steeply rising costs due to inflation were "eating into that contract's health".
Gardiner said community pharmacists "do a phenomenal job" but regretted that from a total of just 11,000, some 700 pharmacies have been lost due to funding cuts.
Trade bodies have reiterated the call for more funding in response to the reports that ministers are considering a Pharmacy First scheme amid the NHS strike.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that pharmacies could be drafted in to help the NHS to cope when other healthcare workers take industrial action.
But, a PSNC committee member has warned on Monday that the government suggestions are "categorically impossible" without extra funding.
The Company Chemists' Association (CCA) has echoed the sentiment, saying pharmacy network is on the brink of collapse.
"We welcome plans for a Pharmacy First scheme in England. However, after eight years of funding cuts, the pressures on community pharmacies are simply untenable,"
Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the CCA, said.
After the government announced to award pay rise to pubic sector workers, pharmacy trade bodies have expressed their disappointment at the neglect shown
towards funding crisis in community pharmacy.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair, Andrew Lane, said: "Our sector can't help but feel utterly neglected after seven years of crushing real terms cuts
to pharmacy funding, amounting to half a billion pounds, and no hint of any relief to come.
"This week's public sector pay awards, which include a large number of our health service colleagues, highlight that there's an unresolved funding crisis in
community pharmacy which needs urgent attention."
"Four months into this financial year, there is as yet no clarity even on current arrangements."
"After stepping up to tackle Covid and keep the wheels on the NHS, the sector deserves better than to be neglected in this way," Andrew opines.
A policy brief, developed by researchers from the University of Bath and University of Strathclyde with funding from Sigma Pharmaceuticals, has recommended
the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS to increase community pharmacy funding to avoid damaging closures and diminution of quality.
The report launched on Wednesday (12 June) at an event in the House of Commons, attended by Members of Parliament, senior policymakers and the pharmacy industry,
analysed community pharmacy policies and spoke to stakeholders to explore their opinions of the future of community pharmacy.
It was found that patients value their community pharmacies, but staff feel demotivated, insecure and undervalued.
Stakeholders and policies suggested that in the future, medicines should be supplied by automated 'hub and spoke' dispensing, enabling community pharmacy staff to
provide services that relieve pressure on GP surgeries, such as long-term conditions management, urgent care and public health.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has called on the NHS England to uplift funding for pharmacy contractors to enable them to cover higher staffing costs
along with a range of other cost-inflating factors.
This follows latest data released by the recruitment platform Locate a Locum, which showed a huge increase in locum rates for pharmacists in 2021 and predicted the
trend to continue.
The report noted a 71 per cent surge in the cost of employing locum pharmacists in England, from the 2020 average to the second half of 2021.
NPA chief executive Mark Lyonette said: "There is a heavy reliance on locums in community pharmacy to maintain continuity of services with the average pharmacy
operating 50 hours per week. Consequently, increases in locum rates have a big effect on the cost base.
"Pharmacies face a range of general cost pressures beyond locum rates, including much higher energy costs. We hear a lot about the cost of living crisis; our
members are facing a cost of doing business crisis and it's every bit as real.
"The underlying underfunding, significant general inflationary pressures and specific cost increases relating to the locum workforce together make a powerful and
urgent case for new funding."
A winter NHS crisis is inevitable unless the government acts now to reverse the worrying decline in community pharmacies. Years of government underfunding could
see 3,000 pharmacies in England - around a third of the network - having no option but to shut their doors to patients in the next few years.
That figure is based on independent assessments from Ernst & Young and UCL/LSE healthcare professors: it is not scaremongering - it is the reality the country faces.
Fifty per cent of pharmacies are already in financial distress because government funding has been falling in real terms since 2019 and that figure is predicted to
rise to 75 per cent within the next two years.
The government needs to act now and invest in pharmacy or sleepwalk into a healthcare disaster as we have seen with access to dentistry care. Prescription volumes
have risen consistently year-on-year by roughly 2 per cent which means fewer pharmacies doing more work and under greater pressure than a decade ago. Ten years ago
around 11,200 pharmacies in England were dispensing roughly 79,000 prescriptions; nowadays around 11,500 are dispensing roughly 89,000 prescriptions.
The secretary of state recently asked pharmacy to do more to avoid a winter NHS crisis and at the same time said there will be no new money to pay for those
additional services. This at a time when the network is in decline with random unplanned pharmacy closures - 640 closures since 2016 - and pharmacy staff face huge
workload pressures as prescription demand is increasing year-on-year. The government's approach to pharmacy literally does not add up: the pharmacy contract is not
fit-for-purpose now let alone dealing with a NHS winter crisis.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, health secretary Steve Barclay stated that he has asked his officials within DHSC to look at a "pharmacy first"
approach to alleviate pressures on A&E departments in order to avoid the widely predicted NHS winter crisis.
On the face of it, this a welcome if long overdue recognition that community pharmacy is an essential part of our national healthcare infrastructure alongside our
GP and A&E colleagues. But let's not get carried away - we have had lots of praise from politicians in the past which have not then been backed by firm commitments
for a sustainable future for the network.
Could this be a turning point? I hope so, but I am not confident it will be. I fear this may turn out to be another emergency stop-gap measure which does nothing to
secure the long-term viability of the sector in England.
The role of community pharmacy during the recent Covid pandemic demonstrated clearly how important we are to ensure people have easy access to essential healthcare
support, advice and services. The NHS winter crisis can only be avoided or at least mitigated if the potential of the community pharmacy network to provide more
patient care services is unlocked and that Barclay requires you to end pharmacy funding austerity and start investing.
The Treasury will no doubt say there is no more money, but what then the alternative other than a NHS winter crisis? And, of course, treating people in secondary care
settings is far more costly than community pharmacy based interventions.
"Not improving our funding is not an option, if they want to continue to deliver anything like the level of patient care we have done in recent years," he
emphasised as he prepares for the NPA'S Save Our Pharmacies Day of Action (June 20).
Over the past two years, McElrea has navigated crises stemming from NHS Scotland policies, particularly concerning medicines price inflation and delayed payments.
"The cost of medicines increased rapidly compared to inflation," McElrea stated, noting NHS Scotland's slow response in adjusting tariff prices.
"This wiped out £50,000 of cash reserves and forced us into £30,000 of additional borrowings."
Delayed payments further strained operations, with McElrea highlighting the impact of payments based on outdated pricing.
Digital pharmacy app Charac has raised over £1 million in debt and equity, bringing total funding to date for the London-based startup to £2.5m.
Pharmacy Business understands while the majority of the new finance, worth about £1.2 million, comes from the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) coffer, the
remainder is put forward by a number of individual pharmacy businesses.
The pharmacy sector is in a state of crisis, experiencing nearly two closures per week over the past two years, Charac said in a statement.
According to data from the NHS Business Services Authority, there are now only 11,026 community pharmacies in England, the lowest number since 2015. The current
crisis is attributed to escalating operational costs, a shortage of staff, and diminished government financial support.
The current funding and contractual framework for community pharmacy is not fit for purpose, the Health and Social Care Committee report has concluded,
recommending a complete overhaul to reduce its complexity.
Published today, the report highlighted the necessity for a new framework to ensure adequate funding and to prevent damaging cross-subsidy between clinical
services and prescription dispensing, as is presently observed.
The report revealed that community pharmacy funding has fallen by over 30 per cent in real terms since 2015, resulting in an annual shortfall of at least £67,000
per pharmacy for individual owners.
More than 1,100 community pharmacies have closed since 2015, of which were serving the most deprived areas, it said.
MPs on the committee have urged the government to address medicine shortages, warning that they could undermine flagship initiatives such as 'Pharmacy First' by
eroding public confidence in pharmacists.
"People living with type 2 diabetes, ADHD, epilepsy and cystic fibrosis, and those experiencing the menopause, have faced challenges accessing the vital
medication they need. Many others are facing similar experiences.
"It is crucial that patients can access care when they need it, whether from a pharmacist or a GP, " Paul Rees, Chief Executive of the National Pharmacy
Association (NPA) has said.
In response to a recent survey conducted by the General Medical Council (GMC) highlighting alarming trends among General Practitioners (GPs), the NPA has issued
a warning about the growing crisis in the UK's primary care system.
Rees emphasised the urgent need for government intervention, saying, "Only by reversing these cuts and providing pharmacies with a new funding deal will we be
able to end the 8am scramble for appointments."
The GMC survey reveals that there is a significant increase in the number of doctors reducing their working hours to safeguard their wellbeing, spotlighting
concerns about the long-term impact on patient care.
According to the report, nearly half of GPs ( 48 per cent) are struggling to manage their workload, with several resorting to decreasing their hours or declining
additional work to protect their mental and physical health.
In his first speech as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP acknowledged that the NHS is in crisis while outlining his mission to
save the health service.
Streeting described the current state of the NHS as "broken," noting its failure to meet the needs of both patients and dedicated healthcare professionals.
"When we said during the election campaign, that the NHS was going through the biggest crisis in its history, we meant it.
"When we said that patients are being failed on a daily basis, it wasn't political rhetoric, but the daily reality faced by millions," he said on Friday (5 July).
The new health secretary remarked that previous governments had been unwilling to admit these simple facts.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has welcomed the Chancellor's commitment to increase the NHS budget, hoping that 'community pharmacies benefit from
this investment'.
The association is urging the government to address years of underfunding so that community pharmacies can avoid staff lay-offs to cover the increasing costs of the
national living wage.
The government's uplift of the National Living Wage was confirmed in its latest budget announcement to tackle the cost of living crisis. The NHS budget will also be
increased in each of the next two years by £3.3bn.
A recent NPA commissioned report by Professor David Taylor from University College London predicted that wage inflation and other cost pressures could combine with
funding cuts to lead to cut-backs and pharmacy closures.
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has refused to accept the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)'s decision to get rid of
'transitional payments' from February 2023.
The pharmacy negotiator said that 'any reductions in payments at this point will be impossible for community pharmacy contractors to manage financially.'
"We are also continuing to be clear with officials and ministers that CPCF funding needs an urgent uplift to help businesses to cope with soaring costs being driven
by inflation and the workforce crisis. We put a comprehensive business case to the government for this uplift in the last CPCF negotiations."
The latest 'transitional payments decision' by the Department follows the announcement last year that the value of the these payments would be phased down over the
second half of 2022/23 and will be based on the latest monitoring and analysis of funding delivery.
PSNC says it submitted a fully-costed bid for a 'Pharmacy First' service in its last round of negotiations alongside the case for an uplift to core CPCF funding.
Both of these were refused.
In a decisive move highlighting the financial strain faced by community pharmacies, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) submitted a £108 million invoice
to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) today (16 May).
According to the NPA, this substantial sum represents the amount that pharmacies in England personally covered for the dispensing of NHS medicines last month, as a
result of inadequate funding.
"The £108m figure is an average monthly figure based on the loss to pharmacy incomes over the past decade," it said.
The association believes that mass closures can be prevented only when the government stops expecting pharmacies to subsidise the cost of delivering NHS care.
NPA chief executive Paul Rees, said: "The soaring costs of dispensing medicine coupled with declining real terms funding has led to community pharmacies in
England having to subsidise the dispensing of drugs to the tune of £108m a month.