Pharmacies are caught between a rock and a hard place | Letter

Your report (Nearly 1,000 pharmacies in England closed since 2017, with poorer areas hit harder, March 29) shines a welcome spotlight on the beleaguered independent pharmacy sector. My family’s pharmacy, which has been in our hands for almost 40 years, has never been under such pressure as it is now. Continued cuts in pay on real terms, and the lack of government action when price increases have given us the choice between accepting a significant financial loss or refusing a prescription for a sick child, have exhausted and weakened the sector abandoned.

A pandemic that has made pharmacies the easily accessible first port of call for patients should have marked a new beginning. Instead, we struggle with our future. The Pharmacy first initiative – getting patients with seven common conditions to go to a pharmacist instead of a GP – is a start, but it is not a panacea: anecdotal evidence suggests that only one in ten consultations will be “successful”, as measured by of the NHS criteria on which payment is dependent; This means that pharmacists will spend a huge amount of time on this work without getting a cent in return.
Hasan Ahmed
Birmingham