A net total of 14 community pharmacies closed across Northern Ireland in 2023/24, a new Health and Social Care Business Services Organisation (HSC BSO) report revealed last month (June 27).
The country’s annual pharmacy statistics counted the lowest number of community pharmacies “in the last ten years”, with just 511 remaining in Northern Ireland as of March 31.
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And the HSC BSO report revealed that 45.1 million items were dispensed by NI community pharmacies in 2023/24 – a 1.7% increase on the previous year and a 17.3% rise in items dispensed since 2013/14.
Community pharmacies dispensed the vast majority of the 45.4 million total items for the year, which was the highest figure “on record”, it found.
“Real acceleration”
Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland (CPNI) chief executive Gerard Greene told C+D last week (July 18) that “this is a real acceleration in closures” after only “13 or 14 closures in total over the past ten years”.
“The worrying consequence of the closures is that the rising demand for prescriptions is being met by a smaller number of pharmacies …this is a real cause for concern”, he added.
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Greene warned that increasing demand is “putting additional strain and workload on community pharmacies”, while the report does not even “capture the ongoing issues with medicine shortages”.
With pharmacies having to look for alternatives to medicines in short supply and “at least 150 medicines” affected in any given month, he said that this adds “to the operational difficulties faced by pharmacy teams”.
Dispensing data
Meanwhile, the HSC BSO’s report also looked at data related to antidepressants, diabetes medication, opioid analgesics, anticoagulants and antibiotics, as well as dispensing costs and dispensing analysis by age, gender and social deprivation.
It revealed that antidepressants were dispensed to 390,192 people in Northern Ireland - roughly one fifth of the population - during 2023/24, an increase of 2.1% from the previous year.
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And over a quarter (25.5%) of the female population received antidepressants compared to 15.3% of the male population, it said.
Health inequalities were also laid bare as it found that 9.3 million items were dispensed to patients in the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland but only 6.4 million were dispensed to those in the least deprived areas.
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Earlier this month (July 10), Northern Ireland’s health minister Mike Nesbitt said that “addressing health inequalities must be at the heart of health reform and a priority across all parts of government” as he announced a “three-year strategic plan for health and social care” to be published in the autumn.
In May, the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) reported that pharmacy closures in England’s rural areas had hit a four-year peak with 13 shutting in 2023.
The same month, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) warned that pharmacy closures were 'skyrocketing' with ten a week on average closing in 2024.