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Pharmacies are “worse off than a year ago” despite an uplift to the annual global sum last March, Community Pharmacy England has told the Government in what it described as an “uncompromising” letter. 

Writing to pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock, CPE chief Janet Morrison said: “Businesses are losing money and accumulating debt, and operationally, pharmacies are struggling to cope with the ongoing demand from patients and the public. 

“Pharmacy closures are continuing – including in our most deprived areas – and we have also seen a reduction in the number of collective pharmacy opening hours.

“Statutory accounts filed at Companies House continue to show the perilous financial position that many pharmacy companies are in, typically with high levels of loss-making, borrowings and net current liabilities.”

Outlining the bleak picture facing pharmacies, Ms Morrison said the 2025 funding uplift “has been swallowed by inflation, tax charges and operational pressures”.

She pointed to a “structural £2bn-plus funding deficit” in the network with businesses losing money each month and having to reduce opening hours “dramatically,” citing a reduction of 75,000 fewer opening hours per week compared to mid-2023 and “an 88 per cent collapse in late evening provision”

“Upcoming changes introduced by the 2025 Autumn Budget are expected to add millions in extra costs, including through a National Living Wage rise and higher business rates,” said CPE.

Calling on the Government to deliver “rapid progress towards sustainability” in the upcoming 2026-27 contractual framework and beyond, Ms Morrison said a continued drop in accessibility to pharmacy services will have consequences for patients and wider NHS services and would also “stall progress” on Labour’s “positive ambitions” for NHS reform. 

CPE said its immediate priorities include a “plan to close the funding gap,” a margin write-off and “continued write-off of over-delivery” and progress towards a commissioned prescribing service “in so far as this is achievable for the sector within the funding available”. 

“There is much at stake,” she wrote, adding that pharmacies “have so much to offer for patients… but this will not be deliverable if progress on sustainability is not made and the network is allowed to collapse”.