Tell your MP about critical winter pressures
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Community Pharmacy England, working with the other national pharmacy organisations, will be holding a Parliamentary event in a few weeks time to reiterate to MPs the enormous pressures that community pharmacies are under and the crippling effect that this is having on businesses of all shapes and sizes. We hope to have MPs from across all political parties in attendance and will be asking for their help with getting more support for pharmacies, as well as explaining to them just how much pharmacies are doing to support patients and the wider health service.
Please help us to raise these pressures by asking your MP to come along to the event using the template letter here.
Our CEO has issued the following statement on the current situation in the community pharmacy sector.
Community Pharmacy England Chief Executive Janet Morrison said:
“Community pharmacies are heading into this winter in an emergency situation as financial and operational pressures continue to take their toll. The headlines this week about yet more branch closures, record losses and pharmacy sales reflect the brutal reality, and I hope that they are ringing yet more alarm bells for Government and the NHS: their near decade-long policy to squeeze community pharmacies financially is now pushing all community pharmacy businesses to the brink.
We have already seen pharmacies up and down the country being forced to close temporarily, making reductions in opening hours where they can, reviewing their estates, and, if they can, closing branches. The message to Government and the NHS remains clear: if you do not reverse this policy, and fast, the impact on pharmacy businesses will be catastrophic, and vital services to patients will become ever more chaotic, with medicines supply potentially critically at risk.
We said earlier this week that we hope to have an announcement on the £645m recovery plan funding, which will bring some relief to pharmacy businesses, soon, but we are clear that this is not going to be enough to reverse all of the pressures on pharmacy businesses and that increased and sustained support and investment are also desperately needed.”
