Tim Farron – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Farron on 2016-10-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of pharmacies that will close as a result of the proposed 12 per cent reduction in funding for pharmacies in England from December 2016 until March 2017.

David Mowat

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of community pharmacy services including public access to medicines. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we have a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population. Our reforms are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. A consequence may be the closure of some pharmacies but that is not our aim.

The Government announced the package of reforms for the community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond on 20 October 2016. This included full details of how the Pharmacy Access Scheme will operate, as well an impact assessment for the package of reforms. This can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-pharmacy-reforms

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