More than half of pharmacies would consider cutting back services if the government does not address the sector’s funding gap, the IPA has revealed.
An IPA survey of around 3,500 English pharmacies, published yesterday, found that 56% “have no choice but to consider limiting services” including Pharmacy First, reducing deliveries and “cutting opening hours” if a “sufficient funding agreement” is not reached.
It also found that 32% of pharmacies “would consider closing their pharmacy altogether”.
And 96% of pharmacies said they “believe action will be necessary if the current funding gap is not addressed” - with the IPA highlighting that contract negotiations, expected to conclude by April, have continued into the new financial year.
Read more: Contract negotiations will not conclude by April 1, says CPE
“This is no longer a theoretical risk,” the IPA warned, adding that “without urgent reform” patients face “reduced access to medicines and services” and “additional pressures” could be placed on other parts of the NHS.
The body stressed that “at the heart of the crisis is a funding model that pharmacies say is no longer fit for purpose”.
“While pharmacies are reimbursed based on NHS Drug Tariff prices, the actual cost of purchasing medicines is often significantly higher,” it said, meaning that “pharmacies are effectively subsidising the NHS to keep medicines available”.
“Time is running out”
The IPA also stressed that businesses are “facing rising operating costs” such as an increase in business rates and that, unlike other primary care providers, community pharmacies “do not benefit from business rates relief”.
IPA chief executive Dr Leyla Hannbeck said that the survey findings should “serve as a wake-up call to the government”, and that “the strength of feeling from pharmacy owners in England could not be clearer”.
Read more: IPA threatens government with legal action over funding
“Community pharmacies do not want to reduce services or close their doors, however, they cannot continue to absorb rising costs while operating under a broken funding model,” she said.
Hannbeck explained that “without a fair and sustainable settlement, more pharmacies will close, and more communities will lose access to vital healthcare services”.
And she called on the government to “act urgently resolve the current negotiations, fix the reimbursement system and provide meaningful support, including business rates relief”.
“Time is running out,” she said.
Read more: Collective action! Pharmacies to cut hours and services from April 1
It comes after a pharmacy chain warned that it will have to take “devastating” measures “to survive” if the upcoming pharmacy contract does not deliver an uplift in funding.
In a letter sent to MPs in March, Fairmans Pharmacy director Julie Forster said the chain, which operates six branches in the North East of England, has “never felt so let down” by its governing bodies.
