The National Pharmacy Association has said it will deliver a petition to Downing Street next month which has been signed by over 300,000 people and calls for better funding for community pharmacies.

The #saveourpharmacies petition, launched by the NPA, Community Pharmacy England, Company Chemists’ Association and Independent Pharmacies Association in March last year, will be handed to Number 10 on September 19 in the hope it will persuade the government to help a beleaguered pharmacy network.

Funding pressures and rising costs are leaving pharmacies across the UK struggling to stay open. A recent survey by CPE revealed pharmacy owners believe they could close in the next 12 months.

Talks on the 2024-25 community pharmacy contractual framework, which stalled before the general election, have yet to restart and the NPA urged pharmacy bodies in England to join it “to demonstrate our unity in calling for a new deal.”

The petition follows a ‘day of protest’ in June when the NPA mobilised its members to embark on a range of symbolic and practical measures, including turning out the lights in the pharmacy, asking staff to wear black and blacking out the windows.

NPA chief executive Paul Rees said the number of signatures on the petition highlighted “the depth of support for community pharmacies and show public alarm that they have been left to decline and close over many years.”

“There has been an amazing effort by pharmacies, NPA members and also many non-members, to gather support for our vital sector,” he said.

“It is so powerful for us to come together and rally behind the simple message that pharmacies need proper support and they need it now.

“With costs rising, workloads increasing and funding falling, we’ve seen a devastating wave of pharmacy closures – this has to stop or millions of patients will suffer, not to mention the impact on the NHS and the nation’s amazing pharmacy teams.”

The NPA said it will send campaign packs to pharmacies across the UK next week which include medicine bag stickers, posters and postcards urging pharmacies and patients “to sound the alarm at a decade of cuts and closures.”