'Hardest five years' for pharmacies in East amid funding pressures
Almost 800 pharmacies have permanently closed across England, according to NHS figures
A pharmacist in the East of England has said it's been "the hardest five years" in the profession for trying to keep services open and the public healthy.
Nearly 800 have permanently closed across England in the last four years, according to NHS figures.
"The last four, five years have been the hardest to keep open, do the services that we're doing," Anil Sharma, who represents the East for Community Pharmacy England, said.
"We're having to charge for a lot of services we were doing free previously; we've had to reduce our opening hours because of the lack of funding."
In March, the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed it had agreed funding with Community Pharmacy England worth an extra £617 million over two years.
That came before last week's Spending Review when Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised a 3% real terms uplift for the NHS in England in day-to-day spending over the next three years, equivalent to £29 billion.
Mr Sharma - who runs several pharmacies including in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk - remains concerned that many are continuing to close.
"Nearly 1,700 (pharmacies) have closed and they've closed because they can't work within the current funding model," he said.
"They don't end up being sold to anyone, they just end up closing and a lot of these closures are in rural areas."
Funding concerns
Ms Reeves' pledge has been met with doubts from pharmacy bodies.
Janet Morrison, chief executive at Community Pharmacy England, said that
Janet Morrison, Community Pharmacy England Chief Executive, said it supports the Government's "commitment to delivering care closer to home.
"But years of underfunding and real-terms cuts have left community pharmacies struggling to cope, and even survive: we need the eventual outcomes of this Spending Review to put this right."
Professor Claire Anderson, president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said attention turns to the NHS' 10-year health plan.
“While the latest community pharmacy funding settlement is a vote of confidence in the sector, we must acknowledge that ongoing economic pressures on pharmacies continue to bite," she said.
"The sector still needs fair and sustainable resourcing in the longer term to bridge the funding gap so it can deliver the Government’s ambitions."
More training
In its long-term workforce plan, the NHS aims to increase training places for pharmacists by nearly 50% to around 5,000 places by 2031/32.
Mr Sharma feels tougher access to GP appointments is making pharmacies more important for local communities.
"You've got areas where there are no pharmacies for five miles and people are driving to their local pharmacy to collect their prescription or healthcare advice," he added.
"What's happened is people are finding it more difficult to get appointments with doctors."
A spokesperson for NHS England in the East said the importance of local pharmacies in the region " is being backed by training up more pharmacists through the NHS’s Long Term Workforce Plan and rolling out more services for common conditions through Pharmacy First.”