Community pharmacies around England took part in the National Pharmacy Association’s (NPA) second day of action today (September 19) to “sound the alarm about the crisis being faced by pharmacy”, including turning off lights in the pharmacy, wearing black and ringing bells in protest.

It follows the first emergency protest in June when 6,000 pharmacies joined in the campaign and continues the NPA’s message “that the pharmacy funding model is broken, closures are unacceptable [and] the workforce crisis is hitting community pharmacies and their patients”.

Read more: Saturday shutdown: Pharmacy protest ballot could see weekend closures

NPA chief executive Paul Rees today delivered the #SaveOurPharmacies petition, signed by 350,000 people, to 10 Downing Street with fellow pharmacy body chief executives including Community Pharmacy England’s (CPE) Janet Morrison, the Company Chemist’ Association’s (CCA) Malcolm Harrison and Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland’s (CPNI) Gerard Greene.

Rees said that this second day of action “will make sure politicians and senior NHS officials are in no doubt about the precarious state of the UK’s precious community pharmacy network”.

“What we need is for government to urgently deliver a fair deal for the community pharmacy sector – and reverse the years of declining real terms funding”, he added.

Read more: ‘Prepared to protest’: CPE and NPA considering GP-style collective action

The second day of action comes as C+D today reported that the NPA will ballot its members for the very first time on “work to rule” action next week, warning it could result in “a lot”  of pharmacies shutting on Saturdays by the end of the year.

C+D reporters took to the streets of England to see how community pharmacies participated in the NPA’s protest.

 

“No brainer”

 

Staff at Wicker Pharmacy in Sheffield were outside at 9am ringing bells, blowing whistles and even playing a recorder and vuvuzela in protest, as managing director Ellie Bennett said that the funding situation “is absolutely horrendous”.

“We can see the pharmacies closing around us. We know what our finances are, which are horrible, and things need to change,” she told C+D.

Bennett said that taking part in the protest was a “no brainer” and was aware of the upcoming NPA ballot over stronger action, adding that “it’s a step we’d be very willing to take”.

Read more: NPA CEO Paul Rees talks ballots and bargaining power

“We've been open every day since 1952 and we've never even considered that we might do something like this, but we've got to do or we're not going to exist,” Bennett added.

East London’s Sonigra Pharmacy joined in the action but instead turned its lights out in part of the store, as well as displaying the NPA’s promotional material in its windows. 

Pharmacy contractor Kirit Sonigra called for “long-term commitment from the government to the viability of community pharmacy” and said he had been making customers aware of the crisis by getting them to sign the #SaveOurPharmacies petition.

 

“Survival of the fittest”

 

S G Barai Pharmacy’s owner pharmacist Reena Barai said that her Sutton pharmacy is “at breaking point” and had to take part in the action as “nothing seems to be working” in influencing changes to the funding contract.

“We are just getting all the nice positive rhetoric but no action, and we're getting to the stage where enough is enough, because pharmacies are closing at an alarming rate,” she told C+D.

“Even though we put on a smiley face and we keep doing what we do [so] we don't let patients down, is that an extreme cost of the health and wellbeing of pharmacy teams and the financial constraints of pharmacy owners?” she added.

Read more: ‘Save Our Pharmacies’ protest: as it happened

Her pharmacy turned the lights off, put NPA stickers on prescription bags and gave NPA postcards to patients so they can write to their MPs about pharmacy funding.

She said that customers have become more aware of community pharmacy issues because of the campaign, even though they struggle to believe her pharmacy is in crisis because it’s always “busy”.

“But actually, it's beyond my control, isn't it? It's almost because we're too busy, so we can't cope so it becomes the survival of the fittest,” she added.

Read more: NPA to deliver #saveourpharmacies petition to new PM Keir Starmer

Halifax’s Heath Pharmacy also had staff wearing black and encouraged customers to sign petitions, with pharmacist owner Hari Patel calling for the amount of free work pharmacies do to be addressed.

“Doing things for free such as giving advice when people ring up, anyone that's been referred from the GP to come and speak to me about something and then go back to the doctor’s if necessary, sending email to the doctors or telling them what to prescribe instead… technically I shouldn’t really do it for free,” Patel said.

 

“Lost” 40 years of money

 

But not all pharmacies took part in the action, with East London’s Sinclair Pharmacy saying it wasn’t aware of the protest taking place despite being an NPA member and having previously shared the #SaveOurPharmacies petition.

Lead pharmacist Bindesh Patel said that the campaign wouldn’t “make much of a difference to the public” if it wasn’t shared widely in the news as “patients don’t realise what’s happening”.

But he agreed that funding is a critical issue and said that the pharmacy is “subsidising the NHS for so many medications from our funds”.

Read more: Pharmacies to sound alarms in unison in September protest

“I’ve been in this game for 40 years and I’ve lost all the money I earned in 40 years – what’s happening is not good,” Patel added.

An East London branch of Kamsons Pharmacy said it was also not aware of the second day of action, but lead pharmacist Kesi Ajudua told C+D that its customers were aware of some issues such as “when there’s something out of stock or we have to change it”.

She said that she hoped change would happen in the sector but doesn’t “expect anything to happen overnight…maybe in the near future”.

In the same borough, Bell Pharmacy lead pharmacist Imran Khan added that he did not think action would help, and said that “the central body, CPE, needs to take control and say for everyone to go on strike”.

Read more: #SaveOurPharmacies petition tops 100k as two-thirds slash opening hours

It comes after C+D last week reported that CPE was considering “all options” on the table if the government doesn’t “find some funding to start to make good on [its] promises”, which included “work to rule” collective action.

In June, the NPA revealed that around two-thirds (63%) of pharmacies in England “have had to cut their opening hours since 2015 due to extreme funding pressures”.