Many community pharmacies across the country will be having one of their busiest days of the year today (Friday 19th December) ahead of the upcoming run of Bank Holidays.

The pre-Christmas season is always incredibly busy as patients rely on their local pharmacy to be able to stock up on their prescription and other medicines before the holidays, and this is being compounded this year by a troubling flu season, resident doctor strikes, and severe financial pressures.

In Community Pharmacy England’s most recent sector polling, 82% of pharmacy owners said they were concerned about their pharmacy business going into this winter season, with a further 2.6% saying they were ‘very concerned’.

This echoes previous polls, as in September, pharmacy owners representing 4,152 pharmacies in England, told us about their fears for the future with:

90% saying that core pharmacy funding is still not enough to cover their costs;
75% expressing negative sentiment about the outlook for their business; and
54% saying their pharmacy was still being subsidised by other parts of their business.

Community pharmacies are still operating under huge financial and operational pressures as a consequence of rising costs and demand, combined with a funding deficit that is estimated to be more than £2 billion annually. Many are hanging on by a thread, losing money and struggling to cope with the ongoing demand from patients and the public.

Pharmacy owners are also ending the year with no certainty about future funding beyond March 2026, and the knowledge that the most recent Budget will add yet more costs for them.

With CPCF negotiations just around the corner, we must see real progress being made towards the Government’s commitment to a sustainable future for the sector: Community Pharmacy England is continuing to do everything that it can to prepare for those negotiations and to make the wider case for investment into community pharmacy. You can read more about this, and about our recent meeting with Minister Kinnock, in the CEO’s most recent Blog: Chief Executive’s Blog: Safeguarding the future 

We ask any members of the public using pharmacies over the holiday period to please be aware of the enormous pressure that pharmacy teams are under and to treat them with respect and appreciation for all the impossibly hard work that they do.

Janet Morrison, Community Pharmacy England Chief Executive, said:

“As we reach the end of the year, community pharmacy owners and their teams find themselves exhausted, with no break in sight as they work through some of the busiest days of their year. As our polling has repeatedly shown throughout the year, lots of pharmacies are quite literally hanging on by a thread as they work to deliver the medicines and services that millions of people rely on every day. On behalf of patients and communities everywhere, thank you to everyone for all the incredibly important work that you do, and the resilience that you show to keep going, day in and day out.

As I said last month: the need for sustainability of the network remains urgent, with untold risk to the safety of medicines supply and the healthcare support that pharmacies provide and the communities that rely upon them if the current pressures persist. We have very clear evidence of the value of pharmacy, the case for investment in pharmacy, and the depth of the crisis the sector still finds itself in.

As we look ahead to funding negotiations which we hope will start early next year, our message to Government and the NHS is very clear: community pharmacies have once again done everything that has been asked of them, delivering huge value and supporting the wider health service and their patients, but they need more help, and urgently. The value of pharmacy is clear; we now need political commitment and progress on closing the funding gap and getting better support to pharmacies to safeguard the future of the network.”