Our response to the DHSC announcement on General Practice investment and changes for 2025/26

Trade press

Responding to a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announcement about investment into, and changes for, General Practice for the financial year 2025/26, Community Pharmacy England Chief Executive Janet Morrison said: 

“It is extraordinary that the Government has announced what looks to be a generous investment in General Practice for 2025/26 before settling the contract for community pharmacies – many of whom are on the brink of collapse – for this financial year. For desperate pharmacy owners working hard to support their patients despite intolerable financial and operational pressures, today’s announcement will feel like more evidence of the inequity at the heart of primary care, and it is a further kick while they are down.

The ongoing delays to CPCF negotiations are infuriating, particularly after we have only recently written to Ministers to express our very serious concerns and intense anger about this. Today’s announcement further intensifies our frustration. It is clearly in everyone’s interests to have a strong general practice service, but without a stable network of community pharmacies to support them, any efforts to ease pressure on GPs will be wasted.  

Government and the NHS cannot be in any doubt that community pharmacies are chronically and dangerously underfunded and need urgent help. While assurances this week from Ministers that news is coming soon and that the pressures have been taken into account have been welcome, this is not enough: every further delay is likely too late for some pharmacy business and the communities and patients they serve. Community pharmacies simply cannot wait any longer for the good news they so desperately need.”