In News

Follow this topic

Bookmark

Record learning outcomes

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson for health and social care Helen Morgan has urged health secretary Wes Streeting to urgently clarify community pharmacy’s funding for 2024-25 in a letter signed by 54 other MPs from the party.

Morgan (pictured) pressed Streeting for answers with the current financial year ending in less than two weeks and pharmacies still in the dark and struggling to stay open as the Government and Community Pharmacy England continue talks on 2024-25 and 2025-26 funding.

Morgan also asked Streeting to confirm if funding for Pharmacy First will continue beyond April 1.

She warned him many pharmacies “are facing imminent closure due to a deadly combination of a litany of financial pressures and ongoing lack of support and clarity from the Government”.

Insisting “the situation is only set to worsen in the coming months”, Morgan pointed to increases in national insurance, national living wage and business rates which will hit pharmacies from April 1.

“I would like to draw your attention to the concerning lack of confirmation of pharmacies’ funding rates for the current financial year which ends in just a few weeks,” she told Streeting.

“This severity of delay in contracting is unacceptable and adds further strain to an already struggling sector.”

Morgan said many pharmacies were dispensing medicines at a loss and “essentially subsidising the NHS at a time when their own financial sustainability is in jeopardy”.

She referenced the National Pharmacy Association’s prediction that around 1,000 pharmacies could close by the end of 2027.

“The worst affected places could lose 30 per cent of their pharmacies, leading to an explosion of pharmacy deserts,” she warned.

Pressing Streeting for answers on Pharmacy First funding, she wrote: “As we approach the start of the new financial year in April, I am particularly concerned that funding for Pharmacy First, a crucial initiative to move more healthcare services into the community, remains uncertain.”

Morgan said it was “deeply worrying” that funding for the service will “expire at the end of the first week of April and there is currently no confirmed funding beyond that”.

Image: www.parliament.uk