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Record learning outcomes

By Arthur Walsh, Editor, P3pharmacy

What’s that dismal sound ringing out across England? It can only be the rolling down of pharmacy shutters as they close up shop for the last time, with a net loss of 222 pharmacies in 2024, according to the National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) analysis of NHS data. This leaves us with almost 700 fewer pharmacies now than we had three years ago.

The NPA has warned patients are having “to travel record distances to access vital medicines”. Assailed by dire funding pressures and the continued absence of a new contract, business owners are being forced out despite their best efforts, which have often included drawing down personal savings to service wholesaler bills.

As well as being desperately sad for pharmacies and their local communities, closures “put significant pressures onto neighbouring pharmacies and risk a domino effect, massively increasing workload and staffing costs without proper remuneration,” the NPA said. 

It described West Berkshire as a “pharmacy desert” with the fewest pharmacies per patient and said regions like Cornwall and Oxfordshire are similarly under threat. A shocking 90 per cent of council areas have lost at least one pharmacy in the last two years. 

You might think this would create gaps in the market ready to be filled by newer, less battle-weary aspirants. However, as a look through the NHS Resolution appeals archives will tell you, applications to open new pharmacies are often rejected by local commissioners. 

NHS decision makers are simply adhering to the regulations, which are highly complex in places. But I can’t help wondering if there are parallels with the UK’s famously restrictive planning laws that block much-needed housing from being built.

I respect that commissioners must take due care in their decisions – but they’ve also got to get their priorities right. As an example, while welcome in so many ways, the new emphasis on services over scripts has frankly shafted huge numbers of pharmacies.

Just look at how businesses that rely solely on prescription income are faring. Remedi Solutions, a supplier to care homes and one of the biggest dispensers in England, was bought out of administration in December after haemorrhaging money and being put on stop by wholesalers. 

The owners of the newly renamed Remedi Healthcare say they are excited for the future and planning to invest, but they’ll have their work cut out after things went so disastrously wrong in its last incarnation. And the company behind Pharmacy2U recently posted a loss of almost £10m in its first set of accounts since acquiring LloydsDirect, which
hardly bodes well. 

Pharmacy First has been a major positive development, but as we hear in our lead story this month, it is far from being a panacea for the sector’s woes. If Labour really wants to offer a fairer settlement and stop more pharmacies going out of business, it should ensure that their core function is funded properly.