The number of pharmacies open after 9pm at least once a week in England has dropped by over 90% since 2022, new NHS data analysis reported by the Financial Times has found.
In 2025, only 132 pharmacies – about one in 100 – were open past 9pm, down from one in 10 three years ago.
Based on analysis by a frustrated patient, the report in the FT said no pharmacies are currently opening past 9pm in nearly half of England’s local authorities, with the south west and east of England having no evening access at all.
Read more: What do recent regulatory changes mean for 100-hour community pharmacies?
The analysis also showed a 20% drop in pharmacies open after 6pm, and an 80% drop in pharmacies open after 11pm. That number now stands at 24 pharmacies.
The number-crunching patient, Robin Wilson, a geospatial software engineer, carried out the analysis which the FT reported on this week.
He decided to research late-night pharmacies after his wife had to make a two-hour round trip to collect his prescription for back pain that left him “immobilised”.
Read more: IN FULL: Number of pharmacies drops below 10,000 in 20-year first
National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair Olivier Picard said the data highlights “what many of us across community pharmacy are seeing every day”.
“Pharmacies are hanging on by their fingernails, cutting hours and services simply to survive,” he said.
Picard said the network is “at its smallest size in nearly two decades” and stressed a gap remains “between NHS funding and the real cost of running a pharmacy”.
Read more: Pharmacy access ‘remains good’ despite closures, Kinnock says
“This is a pivotal moment. As government consultations on future funding begin, we urgently need a meaningful funding uplift that reflects rising costs and reform of the community pharmacy contract, which is outdated and often forces pharmacies to dispense medicines at a loss, effectively subsidising the NHS.”
In January, NPA chief executive Henry Gregg said ministers “must get round the table and put pharmacies in a financial position to help deliver the transformation of local NHS services they, and we, want to see”.
Read more: The decline of the 100-hour pharmacy: Numbers plummet 90% in two years
“Anything less than a 8.9% increase will be a real terms cut, jeopardising patient care and risking further closures.
It comes as a Community Pharmacy England’s (CPE) letter to pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock last month said pharmacy opening hours “have fallen dramatically”, with 75,000 fewer hours each week since mid-2023 and an 88% decline in “late evening provision”.
In May 2023, the NHS terms of service were amended to allow 100-hour pharmacies to open for 72 hours instead.
Read more: ‘Real economic peril’, CPE warns Kinnock in ‘uncompromising’ letter
Pharmacy Law & Ethics Association (PLEA) chair David Reissner wrote in C+D at the time that the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) made this change because there had been an increasing number of unplanned temporary pharmacy closures because of a shortage of pharmacists.
He added that 100-hour pharmacies also seemed to have a higher rate of unplanned temporary closures compared to the sector as a whole.
In April, the number of bricks-and-mortar pharmacies in England dropped below 10,000 for the first time since 2005.
