The Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) has launched a new campaign calling for an end to the business rates disparities between pharmacies and other NHS providers.
It said yesterday that its “Healthy Pharmacies, Healthier High Streets” campaign demands that pharmacies have the business rates costs associated with delivering NHS services “properly recognised and reimbursed” like GP practices and dentist surgeries do.
Read more: Over 280,000 people have lost their local pharmacy this year
The body said the “disparity is increasingly difficult to justify as pharmacies take on more NHS work and become the first port of call for millions of patients”.
Earlier this year, pubs, clubs and live music venues saw their business rates reduced by 20%, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham vowed to “back the businesses that people want to see in their communities”.
Read more: IPA proposes ‘solutions’ for pharmacy contract reform
The IPA highlighted the “growing range” of NHS services delivered by pharmacies, such as vaccinations, contraception and Pharmacy First, but stressed that they must also “absorb business rates alongside rising staffing, energy and other operating costs”.
This pressure, the body warned, “is putting the high street pharmacy network at risk”.
“Simply unfair”
IPA chief executive Dr Leyla Hannbeck called the current system “simply unfair” and highlighted the “essential” role pharmacies play as “the front door of the NHS for millions of people”.
“You cannot ask pharmacies to do more and more for the NHS while continuing to treat them like ordinary retailers,” she said.
Read more: IPA and doctors’ body launch joint petition on primary care funding
“If pharmacies are delivering NHS care, the cost of the premises from which they deliver that care should be properly recognised and reimbursed,” she added.
“We need a fair deal for pharmacy, and we need it now.”
Read more: ‘Wake-up call’: IPA calls for the return of medicines use reviews
It comes after research by the National Pharmacy Association last month revealed that over 280,000 people lost their local pharmacy in the first eight months of this year.
And it follows the IPA proposing a list of “solutions” for reforms to the current community pharmacy funding contract and negotiations for next year’s deal.
