The NHS is unlikely to meet its own target to expand the community pharmacy workforce by over 16,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) pharmacists. On current trajectories, the workforce will be smaller in 2036/37 than it is today.
The community pharmacy workforce needs NHS led investment if the government is to achieve its ‘shift’ of moving care from hospitals to community, the Company Chemists’ Association’s 2025 Community Pharmacy Workforce review finds.
Community pharmacy is facing increasing demands and expectations with the number of NHS-prescribed medicines, NHS-services, and unfunded patient consultations rising. However, the community pharmacy workforce is shrinking. It is forecasted that despite the overall number of registered pharmacists set to increase, community pharmacy will not see an increase in its workforce.
Analysis undertaken by the CCA shows:
- The number of pharmacists working in the community has remained flat for several years.
- More pharmacists are choosing to work part-time and in other settings.
- The number of FTE community pharmacists is at its lowest level since workforce data collection began in 2017.
- Pharmacist vacancy rates have risen above 1 in every 4 posts in some areas of the country, including Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and Somerset
- Without increasing the number of undergraduate pharmacy students, there will not be enough graduates to fill the expanded Foundation Training placements.
- There will be a shortfall of 16,000 FTE pharmacists by 2036/37, despite NHSE’s ambition to increase the number of FTE pharmacists to at least 34,000.
- Without action, the number of pharmacists practicing in community pharmacy could be lower in 2036/37 than in 2021.
To realise the ambitions of their workforce plan, and meet future demands on community pharmacy, the NHS must:
- Halt the recruitment of pharmacists into other parts of primary care (GP surgeries and Primary Care Networks (PCNs)) immediately.
- Commission patient care from pharmacies near to where patients live, rather than simply moving pharmacists from one setting to another.
- Work with higher education institutions and employers to increase the number of new pharmacists.
- Ensure the upcoming workforce plan is accompanied by a clear plan for implementation, and ongoing dialogue with the sector.
CCA Chief Executive Malcolm Harrison said: “The community pharmacy workforce is shrinking. Vacancy rates have risen, and the number of pharmacists is at its lowest level in over eight years.
Unless action is taken, the NHS will be short of 16,000 pharmacists in just over a decade.
The NHS must prioritise an enhanced community pharmacy workforce if it is to realise the government’s planned shifts to move more care into the community and focus on preventing illness rather than just treating it.
The announcement of a new NHS workforce plan for 2025 gives us little hope, when there has been virtually no progress since the last one. Lurching from plan to plan without implementation, alongside continued underfunding, is doing harm to pharmacies who are the healthcare lifeblood of local communities.
Notes to editors
Methodology
This review analysed published data from the NHS England Community Pharmacy Workforce surveys, which ran in 2017, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan uses the 2021 survey results as its baseline for future workforce planning.
Background info on ARRS
- The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme was introduced in England in 2019 as a key part of the government’s manifesto commitment to improve access to general practice.
- The intention of ARRS is to grow additional capacity in General Practice through new roles and multidisciplinary working. It was intended that this will help to solve the workforce shortage in general practice. ARRS staff were key to the ambition to deliver an additional 26,000 professionals working in General Practice, and to deliver 50m additional appointments.
- ARRS has successfully met every target set for it, in some cases early. Over 31,000 people are employed through the ARRS scheme.
- Over 5,600 FTE pharmacists are employed by Primary Care Networks using ARRS funding. We calculate that ARRS has directly led to approximately 3,600 FTE pharmacists leaving community pharmacy to work in Primary Care, equivalent to 20% of our current FTE workforce.
- The Hewitt Review said: “the national requirements and funding of Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) roles for community pharmacists within PCNs, has on occasion exacerbated the problem of a general shortage of pharmacists, with some now preferring to work within primary care rather than remain in community pharmacies or acute hospitals, compounding the problem of community pharmacy closures and delayed discharges.”
- The 2023 NHS Long Term Workforce Plan said: The ARRS “expansion would be carefully managed taking into account additional training of pharmacists, to ensure the growth in workforce is sustainable, and considers the additional capacity required to staff roles across primary care”.
- The House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee report on pharmacy from May 2024: “In our Expert Panel’s evaluation of the Government’s progress made against commitments in the area of pharmacy in England, the Panel found that ‘the disparity between what community pharmacies and PCNs supported by ARRS funding can pay pharmacy professionals, as well as the working conditions they can provide, is benefitting PCNs at the expense of community pharmacies’.”
- The Health and Social Care Committee’s report on pharmacy (May 2024) recommended that “The criteria connected to Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) funding should be reviewed within 3 months to understand whether any additional flexibility could reduce the drain of community pharmacists into primary care networks. The Government should write to us with the outcome of this review”.
- The Independent Investigation of the National Health Service in England by Lord Darzi: “There is huge potential for a step change in the clinical role of pharmacists within the NHS. Expanded community pharmacy services are likely to include greater treatment of common conditions and supporting active management of hypertension. But there is a very real risk that on current trajectory, community pharmacy will face similar access problems to general practice, with too few resources in the places where it is needed most.”