Chancellor delivers Budget speech
The Chancellor announced her Budget in Parliament today (26th November), setting out the Government’s spending plans for the coming financial year.
In terms of healthcare, the Budget commits £300 million of investment in technology to improve patient service and 250 new neighbourhood health centres. The Chancellor went on to say that the Government would be “expanding more services into communities so that people can receive treatment outside of hospitals and get better, faster care where they live”. However, there were no specific pledges about supporting the community pharmacy sector in her Budget speech.
The Chancellor announced some changes which will impact on businesses, including by increasing the National Living Wage by 4.1%. This will impose further cost pressures on pharmacy .in addition to other inflationary cost increases and ever rising prescription and clinical service levels.
Other healthcare commitments noted today included a freeze on NHS prescription charges, which was trailed last week. Wider public health policies included extending the soft drinks levy to cover more products, such as sugary milk-based drinks, and introducing a tax on vaping products.
Whilst the freeze on prescription charges will be welcomed by those pharmacy teams who have to collect them on behalf of the NHS, Community Pharmacy England is concerned about the impact of some of the changes for businesses which could prove particularly challenging for a sector already facing serious financial and operational pressures. This will be on the Committee’s minds as we prepare for the next round of CPCF negotiations.
Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Community Pharmacy England, said:
“Today’s Budget will once again impose higher staffing costs on community pharmacy businesses through the increase to the National Minimum Wage. This is very concerning, and may prove unmanageable for some pharmacy owners as they continue to grapple with extreme financial and operational pressures.
Pharmacies are still feeling the impact of historical 30% real terms funding cuts, and despite a significant funding uplift in April, their annual NHS funding this year falls more than £2 billon short of full economic costs. In that context, it is no surprise that more than 80% of pharmacy owners are concerned about their businesses going into this winter. We continue to hear about pharmacy owners struggling to pay themselves and their wholesaler bills, and to keep their doors open. Higher staffing costs will further compound their financial troubles. It is critical that the upcoming CPCF negotiations recognise the impact of staff cost rises on pharmacies, and that we make further progress along the promised path towards a sustainable model for the sector. If we don’t, patients and wider primary care providers will continue to feel the effects of service deterioration and pharmacy closures.
We will ensure that Ministers know the impact that this Budget will have on community pharmacies, and remind them of the huge benefits that investment in community pharmacies would bring. As Government has rightly recognised, a fully supported community pharmacy network would have so much to offer patients and to help deliver the 10-Year Health Plan: the impact of this Budget must be mitigated, to prevent it from representing a step backwards from that vision.”
