Contractors have been left “panicking” after a wholesaler announced that it would begin collecting its payments from them “earlier” than usual.
In a LinkedIn post shared last week (December 11), NPA chair Olivier Picard revealed he had written to health minister Stephen Kinnock about Alliance Healthcare’s decision to collect direct debit payments “earlier than current arrangements” from January 2026.
He said that the move “may seem like a small administrative change”, but “for many pharmacies already under immense financial strain, it’s yet another pressure on already stretched cashflow”.
Read more: New national living wage could cost pharmacies £94m, CPE warns
And he added that the NPA is “calling on the government to step in” and “align payment schedules between the NHS and wholesalers”.
“This wouldn’t cost the Department for Health and Social Care (DH) a penny, but it would make a huge difference to pharmacies’ ability to purchase medicines for patients safely and sustainably,” he said.
“Unsustainable and unacceptable”
Picard said in the letter to Kinnock that the earlier payment collection gives contractors “no choice but to bridge the payment gap themselves from their own pockets”.
“Our members, including myself, have had to resort to measures such as taking personal loans, cashing in pensions early, borrowing from family, and not taking a salary,” he stressed, adding that the situation is “unsustainable and unacceptable”.
He asked the government to “take urgent action to review the NHS payment schedule for community pharmacy dispensing services” to “help pharmacies maintain medicines supply for patients and to help avoid very hard-pressed contractors having to further increase their borrowing”.
“Insufferable”
Commenting on Picard’s post, pharmacy owner Reena Barai said she had “been panicking since that email came through from Alliance”.
“Digging deep both financially and mentally to survive at the moment, the pressure this creates is insufferable - with no reprieve in sight,” she added.
Picard also commented that he “can’t say” he blames Alliance, and that the “fundamental problem is not with wholesalers but with the way we are paid”.
Read more: Pharmacies face closures and ‘lay-offs’ after autumn budget
Cencora Alliance Healthcare told C+D it was “aligning the date” it collects its direct debits for customers in England to its “standard, existing payment terms”.
“We provided customers and community pharmacy associations with notice and will continue to work closely with them,” it said.
Read more: CPE: 60% of pharmacy owners took no earnings last year
It comes after Community Pharmacy England (CPE) this month revealed that the upcoming increase to the national living wage could result in £69-£94 million in extra costs per year for community pharmacies.
CPE said it has “very serious concerns about the longer-term outlook for the community pharmacy sector” - and that pharmacies having to “absorb the inflationary pressures and workforce shortages” is “pushing many further into loss-making territory” and towards closures.
