Labour’s Budget offered nothing to ailing pharmacies that are in danger of closing their doors for good, sector leaders have warned.
The National Pharmacy Association said high street chemists had already been “forced to the brink by a decade of real terms cuts”.
And they are now “deeply worried by looming increases in National Insurance and the national living wage which would impose huge additional costs on their NHS-funded services if the government does not pick up the bill.”
NPA chief executive Paul Rees said: “Millions of people who depend on local pharmacies will be holding their breath today, hoping that the £22.6 billion increase in health spending announced by the Chancellor will include money to stem the devastating closure of local health services in the past decade.
“There’s absolutely no mention in the Budget of action to halt the closure of our vital NHS pharmacy network, which has been shrinking at the rate of seven a week as pharmacies are forced to close through underfunding.
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“Ministers have a huge opportunity to transform local health services for the better. We just hope that the detail includes desperately needed funding to halt the decline and realise the immense potential of the pharmacy network.”
The Budget included a £22.6 billion uplift for the NHS – the largest real-time growth in day-to-day health spending outside of Covid since 2010.
But the funding crisis among community pharmacies has forced more than 800 to close since the beginning of 2022, according to the NPA.
The association has started balloting members on work to rule collective action for the first time in its 103-year history.
Dr Leyla Hannbeck, a pharmacist and chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, said: “Independent community pharmacies, as small and medium-sized businesses that play a key role in primary care, have the right to be very worried today about their viability and their very existence.
“They are 95% dependent on NHS funding, so cannot make up revenue or profit from general consumer sales as the big retail chains can.
“It’s vital that some of the welcome extra NHS money announced today delivers the much-needed funding boost to the current pharmacy contract negotiations to end the effective funding freeze we’ve endured since 2015, despite rising inflation and costs.”
Dr Hannbeck warned that increases in the national minimum wage and national insurance were a “tsunami” that “will surely push even more community pharmacies over the edge and undermine the government’s claim to believe in investing in primary care as a means to transform healthcare”.
She added: “We are calling for the contract negotiations to resolve quickly and ensure any funding boost remains intact and is not offset by other budget measures.
“The IPA calls for a necessary net funding increase to combat the financial challenges we face.”
