Pharmacies in England funded £800m less than a decade ago, Government confirms
Funding for community pharmacies is £800m less in real-terms today than it was in 2015/16, a parliamentary written answer has revealed.
Pharmacies currently receive up to £3.073bn a year for procuring and dispensing 1.1bn NHS medicines and providing various other safety and clinical services. However, the government has confirmed that the real-terms value of pharmacy funding in 2015/16, was £3.864m.1
The difference of almost £800m means that pharmacy funding now is a quarter less than it was a decade ago.
This cut is further compounded by the significant rise in workload pharmacies have faced since that time – including a 16% increase in the number of NHS prescribed medicines being dispensed.2
Since 31st March 2016, there has been a net loss of 1,479 bricks and mortar pharmacies – a 13% contraction of the network.4 5
Last March, the Government agreed to uplift pharmacy funding by 19%,6 following the decade of real-term cuts. This new funding was welcomed but it falls short of what the pharmacy network needs to survive – with the government’s own independently-commissioned analysis showing a £2bn shortfall in funding.7
At the time of the funding agreement (31 March 2025), the government recognised the significant economic pressures facing the sector and committed to:
- “stabilise community pharmacy”
- “build on what we have achieved to date”
- “lay the foundations for an independent prescribing service to harness its full potential in the future”
Malcolm Harrison, Chief Executive of the CCA said:
“We welcome the minister’s finding that the sector is still significantly underfunded, despite the changes made a year ago.
The Government has pledged to stabilise the community pharmacy network. This will only be possible with fair funding which reflects the workload the NHS and patients expect and need.
Unfortunately, without action, patients will see further pharmacy closures and find it harder to access the medicines they need.
As well as damaging the pharmacy sector, this underfunding significantly limits the NHS’ ability to meet patients’ needs. Pharmacies could release tens of millions of primary care appointments each year, but this is only possible with funding to stabilise the sector, and further investment so patients can access routine primary care from pharmacies closer to their homes and places of work.”
Helen Morgan MP, the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care, who tabled the parliamentary question said:
“Pharmacies play a crucial role by reducing the pressure on overcrowded hospitals and GP surgeries. If we continue to underfund them, we risk putting hospitals already on the brink under even more pressure, leaving many patients to suffer unnecessarily.
“Without additional funding, more pharmacies will close – affecting rural, coastal and deprived communities the hardest – where they are most needed.
“With so many pharmacies already having gone to the wall and with many more at risk of closure, the Government needs to change course. That means reversing the brutal cuts to pharmacies under the Conservatives and exempting pharmacies from the government’s disastrous jobs tax to prevent any future surge in closures.”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
Written answer on pharmacy funding
In a parliamentary written answer, Pharmacy Minister Stephen Kinnock provided a breakdown of nominal and real terms funding through the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework each year since 2015/16. This was in response to a written question tabled by Helen Morgan MP, the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care. It showed that whilst funding for pharmacies in England stood at £3.073 bn in 2025/26, the real-terms value of funding in 2015/16 (in 2025/26 prices) was £3.864bn. This represents a difference of £791m.
References
1 – House of Commons, Written Answer, Pharmacy: Finance, UIN 113242
2 – NHS Business Services Authority, Pharmacy and appliance contractor dispensing data
3 – Since 2015/16 several new services have launched: Pharmacy First (2024), Pharmacy Contraception Service (2023), Smoking Cessation Service (2022), Hypertension Case-Finding Service (2021), Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (2019), as well as the expansion of the flu vaccination programme, and covid vaccination programme.
4 – NHS Business Services’ Authority, Pharmacy Openings and Closures, 5 February 2026
5 – NHS Digital, General Pharmaceutical Services in England 2008/09 – 2018/19, 2 August 2018
6 – Department of Health and Social Care, Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework: 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026, 31 March 2025
7 – Frontier Economics, Economic Analysis of NHS Pharmaceutical Services in England, 31 March 2025