No new distance selling pharmacies (DSPs) will be allowed as of 23 June 2025, following regulatory changes within the community pharmacy sector.

Changes to the NHS (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 – laid before Parliament on Monday – will mean no new applications for online pharmacies can be accepted or permitted from around three weeks time.

Related Article: 4% rise in prescription items dispensed by pharmacies

This means that as of 23 June 2025, the DSP route to establish a new pharmacy ‘will be closed’, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) explained in a briefing on its website today.

The negotiator said any new DSP applications submitted on or before 22 June 2025 ‘will be determined in accordance with the current market entry test’.

Online pharmacies already on a pharmaceutical list ‘will continue to be on the list and be able to continue to deliver pharmaceutical services in accordance with their Terms of Service’, it added.

The news comes as part of changes agreed in the recent 2024/25 and 2025/26 negotiations between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England (NHSE), and CPE.

Related Article: Women on weight-loss jabs must use ‘effective contraception’, urges MHRA

As previously announced, a further change for online DSPs will mean that from 1 October 2025, they will no longer be permitted to deliver directed services – including advanced, national enhanced and enhanced services – face-to-face at the DSP premises.

CPE explained that where a service specification allows, DSP pharmacies will continue to be permitted to provide:

  • Remote consultations (from the distance selling premises) or
  • Off-site delivery of a directed service face-to-face with a patient (i.e. not on the distance selling premises) with ICB approval, if required.

Under the regulation changes, the one exception is that DSPs can continue to deliver the Covid and flu vaccination services onsite at the premises until 31 March 2026.

Related Article: Interview: Independent pharmacies need to be able to 'trust their hub'

‘This is to ensure adequate provision of these services for winter 2025/26 and to protect those who have already placed orders for their vaccination stock,’ CPE said.

In March last year, NHS England’s director for primary care suggested that the provision of pharmacy services was being balanced ‘in a different way’ – citing a 9% increase in DSPs, alongside a 9% reduction in the number of local community pharmacies.