Research shows that pharmacies across England are unable to provide essential NHS and public health services due to the enormous financial and operational pressures they face.
A survey of pharmacy owners representing over 2,100 pharmacies found that more than 96% of respondents indicated they had stopped providing locally ordered services in the past 12 months.
These include emergency contraception and products to help you quit smoking.
Four in five (81%) of pharmacy owners surveyed said they had to stop their extended opening hours, while 90% had to stop hiring locum pharmacists due to high costs.
Of the 92 owners surveyed by advocacy group Community Pharmacy England, more than a fifth said they had had to stop providing free delivery of prescription medicines to patients.
The research comes after data showed almost 1,000 pharmacies have closed in England since 2017, with poorer areas being disproportionately hit by the closures.
The Pharmacy First programme was fully launched on 1 January this year, with patients in England now able to receive treatment for seven common conditions, including urinary tract infections and shingles, through a pharmacy without having to visit their GP.
Janet Morrison, chief executive of Community Pharmacy England, said: “Across England, patients and local communities are paying the price for our collapsing community pharmacy network, as thousands of pharmacies have been left with no choice but to reduce the services they can offer. These are not decisions any pharmacy wants to make, but with a 30% real-terms funding cut and rising costs, pharmacy owners are having to make impossible decisions to try to keep their doors open.
Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, said: “The nation’s community pharmacies are under enormous pressure and grossly underfunded for their vital work on the frontline of health care.
“This has inevitably led to cutbacks such as shorter opening hours and the end of free medicine deliveries to homebound patients. Worse still, over 1,000 pharmacies have been forced to close in the past decade.
“The government should invest in us to reduce waiting times for GPs, but at the moment we are going backwards instead of realising our potential as skilled clinicians.
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He added: “If GPs limit the number of daily appointments, more patients will come to local pharmacies for help, but we are not in a good place after years of austerity. Our ability to be an effective shock absorber for disruptions elsewhere in the health system has been eroded and we have serious capacity problems.
“We need a new deal for community pharmacy that properly funds our work and enables us to deliver great NHS services.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS is broken and pharmacies have been undervalued for too long.
“This government will shift the focus of the NHS from hospitals to the community. We will expand the role of pharmacy by making better use of pharmacists’ skills, including accelerating the roll-out of independent prescribing and establishing a community pharmacist prescribing service.”