DH has not assessed community pharmacy funding since 2019 – lead with ‘Responding to a parliamentary written answer which noted that the Department of Health and Social Care had made no assessment on the impact of the level of funding for community pharmacies since 2019 on the availability of those pharmacies.
Malcolm Harrison, the Chief Executive of the CCA said:
“According to Department of Health and Social Care’s own data, on average every pharmacy in England is suffering from a £67,000 shortfall in funding each year. It is alarming that the Department does not recognise this to be a pressing matter to assess.
The CCA has recently found that there has been a net loss of 720 pharmacies since 2015, with communities who need access to healthcare the most facing the highest losses. Patients in these communities must not continue to be denied access to primary care, due to government underfunding.
The Department of Health and Social Care need to urgently assess the impact that the broken funding model is having on the community pharmacy network and act to reverse the trend of permanent closures.”