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The National Pharmacy Association has today said it will not urge its 6,000 members across England to take co-ordinated action in protest at a funding shortfall that has left many pharmacies struggling to stay open.

Nearly a month after Community Pharmacy England announced it had secured a £3.073 billion settlement for 2025-26, the NPA said it wanted to work with the Government rather than instigate action that would have threatened to drive a wedge between the sector and Labour.

If collective action had gone ahead, pharmacies would have had the option to reduce their opening hours and withdraw services such as free medicine deliveries.

However, the NPA, who warned the settlement left a £2.5 billion funding black hole as exposed by an economic analysis commissioned by NHS England, said individual pharmacies may still decide to reduce their services to save costs.

Situation remains perilous for many pharmacies

Warning the “situation remains perilous for many pharmacies”, the NPA urged the Government to “set out a roadmap to address the challenges set out by the analysis and ensure the sustainability of the community pharmacy network”.

The analysis revealed around 78 per cent of pharmacies in England are not sustainable in the short term and 99 per cent are not in the long run.

The NPA insisted its members “remained deeply concerned” the latest settlement fell well below the level of costs to pharmacies to provide services as set out in the analysis. It urged the Government to start talks “on reform to ensure patients have sustainable services in the future”.

Insisting the settlement “represents a clear step forward after a decade of cuts,” the NPA said: “(We) want to work with the Government to help them improve care for millions of people and bring care closer to communities through reform of primary care with community pharmacy at its heart.”

Kinnock: This is good news for patients around the country

The health minister Stephen Kinnock, who had urged the NPA not to proceed with collective action, said its decision was “good news for patients around the country” and insisted he would work “closely” with the NPA to “build a stronger community care system with pharmacy at its heart”.

“This government inherited a pharmacy sector neglected by years of funding squeezes, which is why we made the difficult but necessary choices at the Budget and acted quickly to provide the first real-terms increase to the sector since 2014 – an extra £617 million over two years,” he said.

“Pharmacies are integral to the fabric of our communities and we want them to play a bigger role as we shift care out of hospitals through our Plan for Change”.

NPA chair Nick Kaye said he hoped its decision not to press ahead with action would be “a turning point after many years of neglect”.

“We are concerned that, despite much needed additional investment, pharmacies will face a substantial gap and some will still need to make tough decisions in the short term to keep their doors open,” he said.

“We want to work with ministers to improve services for patients through reform that delivers stronger and more sustainable care in the community but will be watching closely to see if the additional investment will have a stabilising effect on the pharmacy network.”