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The Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) has launched a brutal attack on some large pharmacy chains for full or part-day closures of some of their shops throughout the UK. It published an Open Letter on Tuesday (July 19) demanding urgent action "to protect patients by ensuring that essential community pharmacy services are provided safely and consistently". PDA chair Mark Koizol, who wrote the letter, went on to allege that many of those closure were "being orchestrated". He wrote that the "pharmacist shortage" narrative cited as a reason for these closures was "very different" from "the reality experienced by our members", including both employed and locum pharmacists. "We have evidence to show that these closures are being announced up to four weeks in advance," Koizol claimed. He gave examples of how a large company attempted to reduce the pre-agreed rate of locums and where this was not accepted, the shift was cancelled, resulting in the pharmacy being closed for part or full day.

A new report commissioned by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has revealed harsh financial realities faced by community pharmacies in England. The report by Professor David Taylor of University College London warned that 1000s of community pharmacy closure might take place by 2024 in England if the sector was not supported with additional funds. At the launch of the report titled 'Protecting UK Public Interests in NHS Community Pharmacy', Prof Taylor said: "There will be several 1,000s of closures over the next few years unless we take appropriate action, which doesn't mean to pour money all over it, but it is to fund appropriately when necessary. "At the moment, if we got a partial collapse in the pharmacy network it would disrupt medicine supply and increase health inequalities… For me, it's missing out on the future development of better and more accessible care, which would be the tragedy of reducing, harming and damaging the pharmacy network unnecessarily."

The Company Chemists Association (CCA)'s 'Prospectus for community pharmacy' has revealed that community pharmacies can release over 42 million appointments from general practice every year. In its prospect, the association calculated that community pharmacies could reduce hospital readmissions by 65,000 and administer an additional 10m routine vaccines annually. The prospectus sets out bold ideas and proposals regarding the future of community pharmacy. The association said: "Community pharmacies already work collaboratively with the NHS to ensure that patients can access care easily and safely. Whilst the sector has evolved considerably in recent years, the CCA proposes that pharmacies could do even more to directly tackle key problems for patients." CCA is concerned that without immediate action pharmacy closures will become increasingly common. "Fewer pharmacies will considerably diminish access to vital medicines and services, with the greatest impact on those in deprived communities."

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has called pharmacy employers and pharmacy trade unions to come together to a round table meeting to agree on principles for a way forward that ensures patients benefit consistently from access to high quality, adequately staffed, safe pharmacy services. It has also urged the governments, NHS organisations and individual pharmacy teams to define clear prioritisation plans, which can be embedded in organisational business continuity plans which set out the pharmacy services that are essential and must always be provided and can be de-prioritised at specific levels of pressures. The challenges for pharmacies are compounded by the escalating cost of living crisis. With unprecedented levels of burnout among pharmacists, pharmacy closures and the potential for strike action, RPS has called for three things- 'professionalism, respect and prioritisation.'

The pharmacy chain has already announced plans to permanently close hundreds of its branches across the UK to consolidate its portfolio of 2,200 stores to 1,900. Two of its branches in North Wales will be closed next year, with its site in Rhos on Sea set to close its doors in March 2024 and the shop in Colywn Bay the following month. In a statement obtained by The Sun, Clwyd West MP David Jones has branded the closures "hugely bad news for the local community". He added that it is not "a case of simple shop closures," but "another body blow for the local retail economy." The Station Road shopping centre, where the Colwyn Bay store is located, has already seen the closure of several other prominent stores, including WHSmith, the MP stated. The closure of two Boots stores will leave many people "extremely worried as to how they will be able to obtain essential medicines," he added.

Several medium-sized pharmacy chains and multiples in Scotland are increasing in size by purchasing numerous LloydsPharmacy sites that were closed last month. The Pharmacists Defence Association (PDA) Regional Committees met to dwell on the issues faced by the community pharmacists across the UK. The PDA's Scottish regional committee highlighted the impact of Lloyds Pharmacy's closure in their third committee meeting of 2023. It said: "Davidsons who have purchased various businesses in Tayside. Rowlands has purchased 30 branches across central Scotland and the PDA has been in touch with members affected. These members will be supported to ensure that they are properly subject to a TUPE transfer (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) as they should be when a business changes ownership." Most discussion amongst the Scottish Regional Committee members was around community pharmacy. Reports suggest that negotiations between the Scottish government and the pharmacy owners' body, Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) have broken down. As the independent voice of the frontline employed and locum pharmacists that deliver the contract, the PDA wants to see an agreement found for the benefit of patients, taxpayers, and health professionals.

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.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was questioned whether he 'will take urgent action to prevent pharmacy closure'. At Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in Parliament held on Wednesday (26 April) he replied, "we will continue to do everything we can to support community pharmacies." Labour MP for Knowsley and All-Party Pharmacy Group member, George Howarth said: "Given the chronic lack of capacity in the NHS, the Prime Minister will be aware that community pharmacy can help deal with minor illnesses. But there is a problem on average 10 Pharmacy close every month in England." Prime Minister was further asked "will he take urgent action to prevent further closing and commission a properly funded 'Pharmacy First' service for minor illnesses? Sunak replied: "I've been a wholehearted champion and believer in the role that community pharmacists can play. we want to make sure that they can do everything to ease some of the pressures in primary care.

Lloyds Pharmacy announced the withdrawal of pharmacy services from all Sainsbury's stores over mounting "industry pressures" faced by the community pharmacies. The company had 77 branches at the beginning of this year - out of which five branches closed their doors and transferred the ownership of the remaining 72 to others. It was announced in June this year that Lloyds Pharmacy branches in Sainsbury's will close its operation throughout 2023. The following decision came after "changing market conditions" put 2,000 jobs on the line across the UK. Four Lloyds Pharmacies inside Wales Sainsbury's stores closed within days of the announcement and one in the Roath suburb of Cardiff as well. The remaining 72 changed hands as confirmed by the figures obtained by WalesOnline on 5 October.

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 National Pharmacy Association (NPA) highlighted the role played by community pharmacies during pandemic to provide urgent care and vital support to people with long-term medical conditions at its opening remark in the Covid-19 public inquiry held on Tuesday (28 February). NPA is the core participant in the Covid-19 public inquiry. lawyer Brian Stanton made an opening statement on the NPA's behalf which focused on three areas- health inequalities and the needs of vulnerable patients; the impact of medicine shortages and medicine price increases and the challenge that community pharmacy faced in responding to the pandemic and maintaining patient services following long-term under investment. Stanton said: "The UK's community pharmacies were on the frontline of efforts to limit the impact of coronavirus and to keep people well, and as well as handling a massive increase in demand for healthcare advice and medicines, they also continued to provide urgent care and vital support to people with long-term medical conditions. "However, there are now very many at risk of closure during to underfunding and when the Inquiry comes to consider its recommendations the NPA would encourage you [the presiding judge] to think about how resilience can be built into future plans." The statement included a compelling account of the commitment typical of so many pharmacies during the pandemic - from husband and wife Pete and Sukhi Johal, both NPA members and pharmacists, who co-own Calow Pharmacy in Chesterfield.

The English health secretary has fumbled the opportunity to prevent a crisis in the NHS this winter. She either does not understand or value the role of community pharmacy as the third pillar of patient access to essential healthcare. Her announcement that she wants community pharmacy to provide more services to take the strain off A&E departments and GP surgeries comes on the same day DHSC announces no new long-term investment to sustain the sector. Does she not understand that as a result of years of government underinvestment in England the network is in decline with random closures across the country? Too many pharmacies are temporarily closed every day due to workforce shortages beyond the control of pharmacy owners. Adding a new service here and there, even with some additional funding, does not address the longer term viability of the network which needs to know which patient services it will be expected to provide over the next 10 years - not just the next few months - and how those will be adequately remunerated. Asking more from our sector with no new investment is a strategy which is bound to fail. The pharmacy contract remains economically illiterate. The sector's finances need open heart surgery not a couple of paracetamol tablets.

harac, an NHS-integrated one-stop platform for independent community pharmacies, and the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) have announced their long-term partnership to allow pharmacies to deliver the broad range of services needed to support the public. The NPA and Charac will collaborate with members of the NPA and beyond to accelerate the necessary digital transition of independent community pharmacies, particularly given their importance to poorer communities and less advantaged individuals at high risk due to potential pharmacy closures. The partnership is part of the NPA's efforts to improve the online presence of community pharmacies, including patient application, online booking, website design, and a delivery service. With Charac similarly dedicated to bettering digital interaction with patients, the new joint ecosystem will provide pharmacies with the necessary funding and cutting-edge technology to aid delivery of primary care.

The health secretary, Steve Barclay was asked over the delay of 'Pharmacy First' model in England that was proposed by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) last year, at the Health Committee evidence session held on Tuesday (31 January). Taiwo Owatemi MP (Chair of the Pharmacy APPG) asked whether he was adhering to his statutory responsibility to ensure continued access to medicines and cited the CCA's closures in areas of deprivation research. Barclay replied that the government is 'investing more'. He said, "We put an extra 100 million on top of the 2.6 billion a year we commit to community pharmacy to expand the range of clinical services. We've got over 2 million patients that have been referred to community pharmacy from NHS." He further added: "One of the issues I'm very keen on is to explore what more we can do in pharmacy not least given the pressures on GP and the opportunity to look at what it is currently people go to GPS for where potentially the risk to do more at the pharmacy and we're already doing that."

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has advised pharmacy contractors to use emergency provisions to avoid and reduce temporary closures amid shortage of pharmacists and other staff. The provision was introduced at the start of the pandemic to enables flexible provision of pharmaceutical services by pharmacies. It has been extended several times, currently until January 31, 2022. The negotiator noted that self-isolation requirements and a lack of available pharmacists led to a spike in short-notice closures/late opening/early closing incidents in the community pharmacy sector. However, it reminded contractors that they have a clear duty to provide services in line with their contractual arrangements.

Amid media speculations that a large pharmacy multiple was putting all its stores at risk of closure, PSNC supremo Janet Morrison said the sector was in crisis and in danger of a significant collapse. Addressing delegates via a video link at Sigma Pharmaceutical's 13th Annual Community Pharmacy Conference held last week (March 4 -9) in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, she said while "a lot of consolidation or sales" would continue, a lot of the smaller, independently-owned community pharmacies - which had to work harder and harder to make ends meet - were just "hanging on in there". "But I don't know how much longer people can go on," she said, adding that the risk of actual closure was rendering the remaining pharmacies so fragile that "they may not be able to pick up the slack of many thousands of patients" who would need repeat prescriptions. "The disruption is frightful and awful. We have got 53 per cent of the population on repeat prescriptions, so that matters." Her comment on the opening day of the conference was a sober reminder that the sector - which relies heavily on income from prescriptions - couldn't afford to "carry on with the current format of a contract and the current amount of money" it was paid to deliver numerous tasks which have been heaped on it to share the burden of a crippling NHS.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in recent response to the questions asked by members of the House of Lords addressed the concerning trend of pharmacy closures in rural areas across the UK. Led by The Bishop of St Albans, inquiries focused on the number of community pharmacies that had ceased operations over the past five years and the ongoing financial challenges faced by those remaining in rural regions. Lord Markham, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care, provided insights into the stark reality confronting rural communities. Highlighting data as per Guide to applying the Rural Urban Classification to data (2019-2023) Markham illustrated the significant closure rates of rural pharmacies compared to the limited number of new openings between 2019 and 2023. The figures revealed a fluctuating trend over the past five years, indicating a dynamic landscape within rural pharmacy provision.

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.

The recent announcement that Royal Mail will be partnering with distance selling pharmacy (DSP) giant pharmacy2U highlights how standards of regulatory enforcement are being ignored to accommodate the DSP model. The brunt of these double standards hinges around the levelling down of temperature enforcement standards by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which demands mapping must be audited from the point of dispensing to the patient. The MHRA has a well recognised duty to ensure medicines reach patients in a safe condition. The current anomaly appears to turn a blind eye to this step in the supply chain at the point the wholesaler releases goods to the pharmacy hub. Equally the training on delivering medicines safely and effectively direct to patients should apply fully to all hubs including DSPs. Why is it that DSPs are being treated differently to bricks and mortar pharmacies? It's essentially the same patients receiving the same medicines from the same wholesalers. A further regulatory disparity exists around how parcels must be "tracked and signed for" to be reasonably certain medicines are delivered into the hand of the intended recipient, as per existing regulations. Clearly an untracked, unsigned package cannot be guaranteed to finish in the hands of the intended recipient. There is a very real possibility that such omission could lead to community pharmacy closures which will, in turn, lead to unemployment and a reduction in the care services. At a time when integrated care systems have just gone live, the removal of vital support services leading to further inequalities is the wrong message for both providers and patients alike.

As Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announces the forthcoming UK general election, pharmacy bodies are calling on all political parties to commit to solving the issues facing the sector. The next UK general election will be held on 4 July, Sunak announced it on Wednesday afternoon during a press conference outside 10 Downing Street. "As the election is called it's imperative that any incoming government addresses the crisis in primary care and the looming cliff edge facing pharmacies, which for millions of people are the front door to the NHS and a crucial source of frontline health care," said Paul Rees, Chief Executive of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA). Noting that the first responsibility of the government is to keep its people safe and healthy, he emphasised the importance of addressing the "deep funding gap that is pushing record numbers of pharmacies to the edge of closure and beyond, exacerbating the issues of waiting lists for GPs and hospital care."