The National Pharmacy Association has said its analysis of figures by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show the UK is “bottom of the league” for the number of pharmacies and money spent on medicines.

Describing its findings as “shocking,” the NPA said the UK was the “‘sick man of Europe” compared to the OECD’s other 37 member countries, lagging behind Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, France and “a host of other nations” when it came to the number of pharmacies per 100,000 people.

The NPA said the average pharmacy in the UK serves 5,700 patients compared with 3,238 in France and 2,500 in the Republic of Ireland where pharmacies serve “fewer than half the number than in the UK.”

The NPA also said the OECD’s figures, published last year, revealed “all comparable countries served fewer patients” than the UK where the pharmacy network “is at its smallest level for around 20 years.”

“A thousand pharmacies are projected to close in England in the next three years if current trends continue,” the NPA said, warning “a decade of underfunding” had forced pharmacies to close “at record rates.”

The NPA said its analysis also showed the UK spends less on medicines per head of population than Australia, Ireland, Japan, the US, Spain, Italy and Germany. The US spends almost three times as much as the UK and Germany double the amount.

Ninety-nine per cent of NPA members recently voted for work-to-rule action, including limiting services to patients, for the first time in the organisation’s 103-year history in protest at poor government funding.

NPA chair Nick Kaye said it was “damning that UK pharmacies serve more patients than comparative countries whilst also receiving ever reducing levels of funding.”

“As our ballot result showed, many pharmacy owners feel pushed to breaking point thanks to the impact of 40 per cent cuts to their funding and increases in their workload,” he said.

“Community pharmacies have the potential to deliver so much more for patients, including a wider range of clinical services that will help to keep pressure off other parts of our health system.

“However, this cannot happen with funding at its current levels and pharmacies shutting at record rates.”

Community Pharmacy England still waits for Labour to start contractual talks for 2024-25 and beyond and Kaye urged the Government to “get round the table and start to deliver the funding necessary” to prevent any more pharmacy closures.

The NPA warned the OECD’s figures were published “before an additional several hundred pharmacies shut in England.”