The debate around the causes behind full or part-day pharmacy closures – be these a lack of pharmacists, staff shortages or pay disputes – has often become heated in recent months.

Last week (November 11), C+D revealed that some 3,660 pharmacies across England reported temporarily closing between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022.

Although some closures only occurred for a matter of hours rather than full days, affected pharmacies reported shutting their doors a total of 20,924 times during this period, according to data* NHS England (NHSE) shared with C+D in response to a freedom-of-information request.

Read more: Revealed: The reasons behind temporary pharmacy closures

Some regions in England experienced higher rates of temporary closures than others.

A spokesperson for NHSE advised C+D that, due to the differences in size between each region and the varying number of pharmacies in each, looking at closure rates rather than numbers of temporary closures might be more useful for understanding how each region was affected.

 

Closures by region

 

 

 

Pharmacies in the north east and Yorkshire reported the greatest number of temporary pharmacy closures compared to other regions, with 4,409 instances between October 2021 and September 2022.

The region is home to a total of 1,828 pharmacies, according to NHSE data. C+D’s analysis found that 39% of pharmacies in the region reported at least one instance of closure in the given period.

Pharmacies in the south east of England reported closing a total of 3,525 times, with 35.5% of the region’s 1,517 pharmacies affected.

The south west followed, recording 3,412 closures between October 2021 and September 2022. This region logged the highest rate of closures out of all the regions, with 43% of the 990 pharmacies in this region reporting at least one closure during the 12-month period under C+D's investigation.

The east of England saw 3,393 instances of closures, with 40% of its 1,162 pharmacies affected. Meanwhile, 31% of the 2,146 pharmacies in the Midlands had to close temporarily, clocking up 2,935 instances.

The same percentage (31%) of the 1,636 pharmacies listed in the north west reported having to close their doors temporarily. NHSE received 1,974 reports of such instances in this region.

Finally, pharmacies in London reported the lowest number of temporary closures at 1,276 throughout the year.

This region also had the lowest rate of closures at 18%, as 332 of the 1,812 pharmacies listed by NHSE for London had to make unplanned changes to their opening hours.

 

Reasons for closures

 

C+D’s analysis found that the majority of temporary closures across England were attributed to a lack of locum cover. Pharmacies provided “locum could not be found” as the reason for having to close temporarily in 10,637 instances, while “no cover found” featured 811 times.

Read more: Which major pharmacy groups reported the biggest number of temporary closures?

This pattern was echoed regionally, too.

Lack of locum cover was the reason given for 71% of temporary closures in the east of England; 63% of closures in the south east; 57% for the north east and Yorkshire; 49% in the Midlands; 39% in London; 37% in the south west; and just 14% in the north west.*

 

Regional actions

 

A spokesperson for the NHS team in the east of England told C+D that “unscheduled closures are often due to staffing issues whereby a pharmacist is unable to attend work and there is difficulty in sourcing a locum”.

According to NHSE’s data, staff sickness accounted for 9% of closures in the region.

“While it is for contractors to manage staffing, we are currently exploring issues and possible solutions to minimise temporary closures for patients,” the spokesperson said.

In October, the Department of Health and Social Care told C+D that it is “monitoring temporary closures of community pharmacies”, but in May it said that community pharmacy employers are ultimately responsible for attracting and retaining their staff.

Read more: DH keeping an eye on temporary pharmacy closures, it confirms

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the NHS team in the south east told C+D it is working to alleviate the impact of closures by giving pharmacies in the region guidance.

They explained that shortages of both pharmacists and support staff could be behind closures in the region.

The south east experienced its highest number of unplanned closures July and August during the summer holidays. However, fewer closures have occurred since September, the spokesperson added.

While some employers and pharmacy representative bodies have told C+D that some of these closures are due to a lack of pharmacist availability, this reason has been disputed by the Pharmacists’ Defence Association, which claims that on some occasions the closures occur even when locum cover can be found.

Catch up with our previous coverage based on NHSE’s temporary closures data and with our latest Big Debate, which asked what needs to be done to make community pharmacy a more attractive career offer.

 

*Caveats on C+D’s analysis

NHSE provided reasons for closure by each ODS code (a pharmacy's unique identifying code). However, in calculating the total of instances of closures, it did not factor in the ODS codes without a corresponding trading name and the instances without a corresponding closure date.

These represent around 2.6% of the total reasons provided and have been excluded from C+D’s analysis.

NHSE only provided the duration of closures (in hours) for some pharmacies. Because this dataset was incomplete, this metric has been left out of C+D’s analysis.

C+D has asked NHSE for the full data on the duration of closures.

Any ODS code corresponding to an online pharmacy has been excluded from this analysis.