Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has revealed that 96% of pharmacies have stopped providing a locally commissioned service this year, as it released the results of a poll of pharmacy owners today (August 5).

The pharmacy negotiator said that contractors are choosing to opt out of a range of pharmacy services as “financial pressures” take a toll on patients’ access to “essential healthcare services in their communities”.

Read more: IPA joins forces with primary care orgs to demand health sec meeting

“More than 20%” of pharmacies no longer provide free prescription medication deliveries and eight in ten (81%) no longer offer extended opening hours, according to CPE’s survey representing “more than 2,100 pharmacies in England”.

The poll revealed that nine in ten (90%) responding pharmacy owners had chosen to do without the services of locum pharmacists, which the negotiator said was “likely on cost grounds”.

 

“Impossible decisions”

 

CPE chief executive Janet Morrison said that “thousands of pharmacies have been left with no choice but to reduce the services that they can offer”.

Morrison added that contractors are making “impossible decisions” to remain in business, faced with “spiralling costs” and “real terms” funding cuts.

She warned that community pharmacies need “urgent help”, particularly since the sector is “doing more now than ever to support patients since the launch of the Pharmacy First service”.

 

Stick with Pharmacy First

 

Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) head of policy Dr Nick Thayer today said that the sector’s underfunding has left it “between a rock and a hard place”.

Thayer added that the CCA encourages pharmacy contractors to “continue to deliver the Pharmacy First service”, noting that its funding does not come from the same pot as the community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF).

Pharmacy First has had “a strong start and patients really value it”, he said.

Read more: Pharmacy funding talks ‘unlikely’ before September, says CPE

Last month, CPE announced that the minimum number of Pharmacy First consultations pharmacies will have to complete in August to qualify for a monthly payment has been reduced from 20 to 15 amid ongoing concerns about the target’s achievability.

And last week, CPE announced that negotiations on the pharmacy contractual framework for 2024/25 will likely resume in September at the earliest.

Meanwhile, it comes as C+D today revealed that “many employers” have asked pharmacists training to be independent prescribers (IPs) to source their own designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) at their own expense for between £2,500 and £3,000.

Read more: UPDATED: Cat M clawback: Pharmacies hit with £9m monthly price reduction

And the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) last week warned that ongoing collective action by GPs “is bound to have a ripple effect on community pharmacies”.

“Community pharmacy’s ability to be an effective shock-absorber for disruption elsewhere in the healthcare system has been eroded by persistent underfunding,” NPA chair Nick Kaye said at the time.