Autumn Budget: Community Pharmacy England’s Push for Mitigations

Since the Autumn Budget, Community Pharmacy England has been working to ensure that the impact of the announced changes on community pharmacies is fully understood by Government, and to argue once again that community pharmacies urgently need a funding uplift.

Chief Executive Janet Morrison met with Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock on the day of the Budget to outline the immediate concerns about cost impacts for pharmacies. We also issued an initial statement warning of the precipice on which the sector stands, which was shared with the Treasury.

In a letter to the Minister and to Secretary of State Wes Streeting MP, Janet warned that the Budget will take hundreds of millions of pounds out of the sector, and said that without mitigation, Government can “expect to see closures continuing alongside further serious service deterioration”.

Community Pharmacy England’s Budget impact analysis found that:

• The National Living Wage increase will cost the sector an additional £115-£152 million per year from April 2025;
• Changes to Employers National Insurance are estimated to cost at least circa £50m; and
• The reduction in the rate of business rates relief will see a further increase in operating costs for those pharmacy businesses affected.

Community Pharmacy England is arguing strongly that any dispensations for health bodies must include community pharmacy, and that pharmacies urgently need a funding uplift to put the sector on a sustainable footing and to mitigate against these additional costs. We are continuing to work with other affected sectors across primary care.

In the past week, as well as sharing our analysis with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Ministers, we have briefed national media and sent a briefing note to our network of supportive MPs and Peers. LPCs and pharmacy owners can also download and share this briefing note with their local MPs or other stakeholders:

Autumn Budget: Community Pharmacy Briefing Note

Last week some of our analysis was used as part of a piece on Good Morning Britain (watch from 1 hour 44 minutes). The coverage also used the headline statistic “1 in 6 pharmacies won’t survive the year” from our 2024 Pressures Survey Funding Report.

Janet Morrison, Community Pharmacy England Chief Executive, said:

“These changes will take hundreds of millions of pounds out of the community pharmacy sector which, without mitigation, could hasten a ‘house of cards’ collapse in the network and pose risks to the safety of medicine supply. Nether patients nor the NHS can afford for this to happen, and the consequences of more pharmacy businesses collapsing for all those who work in, and rely on, them would be disastrous.

“Urgent action is needed now to stem these costs and immediately re-set the contract sum to keep pharmacies afloat and to protect communities’ access to medicine supply and health advice.”

Pharmacy owners are encouraged to write directly to their MPs about the current ongoing pressures using our guidance for writing to your MP, sharing the briefing and any other financial details that you can.

We will continue to raise the seriousness of this issue with Government and to highlight it through Parliamentary and media work, as well as work to influence the development of the NHS Plan to build towards a more sustainable future for community pharmacy.