One in three pharmacies warn of service cuts without urgent funding

Around a third of independent pharmacies in England have signed a letter to health secretary Wes Streeting warning that pharmacies are ‘at real risk of imminent closure’ as they approach a ‘looming cliff edge’ of costs in April.

They said business rate rises and minimum wage increases due in April - on top of historic funding cuts - will force pharmacies to face ‘agonising’ decisions about which services to scale back or cut to stay open.

The letter said: ‘Our teams are at breaking point. And too many of us are left taking out loans, maximising overdrafts and raiding pensions that we have spent our working lives building to keep our pharmacies afloat when we should be investing in the community healthcare you want to see.’

In the letter, contractors urged the health secretary to keep his promise to stabilise pharmacy funding so they can continue delivering NHS services.

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‘Your ambition to reform the NHS to bring care closer to communities is what we have devoted our careers and our lives to achieving. Our pharmacies are in high streets, in villages, in communities and collectively we see millions of patients – your voters – every day,’ they added.

A total of 3,200 independent pharmacies in England signed the letter between 30 January and 17 February 2026

This comes as a National Pharmacy Association (NPA) survey found that 65% of pharmacies in England operated at a loss in 2025, and 95% of pharmacies were not in a financial position to support the government’s ambitions to move care into the community.

The NPA said, on average, more than one pharmacy closed every week last year and, in January 2026 alone, eight pharmacies permanently shut.

It added that deprived areas with high health needs saw the highest rates of pharmacy closures between 2022-2025, with Liverpool being the nation’s capital for pharmacy closures per head of population, followed by Blackpool, Coventry and Hull. It said the pharmacy network in England now stands at its smallest since 2006.

Olivier Picard, chair of the NPA, said: ‘Pharmacies serving millions of patients are at real risk of closure as a tsunami of new costs arrive, and are faced with agonising decisions about how they can continue.

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‘Without urgent action, millions of patients risk losing the most accessible part of the NHS; their local pharmacy. This is now a question of patient access and NHS resilience, not just pharmacy funding.’

Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) also called for more funding stability.

He said: ‘The recent 4% increase in funding for 2024/25 and the 14% uplift for 2025/26 offered a little respite but was insufficient to offset the financial pressures built up from almost a decade of real‑terms cuts, or the growing pressures of rising NHS workloads.

‘The sector is operating within a funding model that no longer reflects the true cost of delivering NHS pharmaceutical care.’

He said patients were at the heart of the issue, and warned they could lose access to medicines, advice and essential care if a sustainable funding model is not put in place.

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Just this week, Morrisons began looking to sell ‘dozens’ of its in-store pharmacies after finding that many of them were not financially viable.

‘The government must deliver on its commitment to stabilise the sector,’ Mr Harrison added.