Almost 3.4m hours of pharmacy access lost each year between 2022 and 2024
The CCA has uncovered the damaging impact that continued underfunding has had on the sector – with over 6 million hours of pharmacy access lost between September 2022 and June 2024 alone. Whilst nearly two-thirds was due to pharmacy closures, 38% were due to reduced opening hours. Over a quarter (26.9%) of pharmacies trading in June 2024 had reduced their opening hours in the previous 18 months. The impact of reduced opening hours has been felt unevenly across England with pharmacies in the 20% most deprived communities having to reduce their opening hours 3.6 times more than those in the 20% least deprived.