Pharmacy leaders condemn government decision on business rates relief

Pharmacy bodies have condemned the government's decision to provide business rates relief for pubs while offering no support for community pharmacies facing rising costs from April.

Henry Gregg, chief executive of the NPA, said: 'It's simply outrageous that the government should offer business rate relief to pubs but ignore pharmacies that play a vital health role on thousands of our high streets.'

Chief executive of Community Pharmacy England, Janet Morrison, described the move as ‘unfair disparity’.

And Dr Leyla Hannbeck, executive chair and chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association, said that pharmacies should be ‘treated on a par with GPs and dentists, who don't pay business rates, as the front door of our NHS’.

‘If ministers are serious about protecting patient access to medicines and care, they must urgently step up and properly fund community pharmacies,’ she said.

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The criticism follows a Treasury announcement that pubs and music venues in England will receive a 15% discount on business rate bills from April 2026, plus a two-year freeze in real terms.

The government also said extra funding would be made available for Scotland and Wales to follow suit.

However, community pharmacies will receive no equivalent support despite facing a double impact on business rates when changes take effect from April 2026.

Bills will rise when the government discount introduced to support businesses during the pandemic is removed. The relief was scaled back from 75% in 2024/25 to 40% in the current financial year, and the government will end it entirely from April 2026.

In addition, rates for commercial and other non-domestic properties are being reassessed based on rental values from April 2024, which, for many premises, will mean higher valuations than current figures introduced three years ago.

Local councils will calculate bills by multiplying the property's rateable value – an assessment of what it would cost to rent the property for a year – by the relevant charging rate, or 'multiplier', set by the government.

The government is reducing the multipliers charged on retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England.

For those properties with rateable values of £51,000 or more, the multiplier falls from 55.5p per pound to 43p, while for those with rateable values under £51,000, it falls from 49.9p to 38.2p.

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However, pharmacy leaders warn this lower multiple will not compensate for losing the 40% discount and potentially higher property assessments.

They said that the increases will push some pharmacies towards collapse.

Dr Hannbeck said: ‘Burdens on high-street businesses like higher employers’ National Insurance contributions have already forced 650 pharmacies to close in the past year alone, with many more on the brink, even as GP surgeries and dental practices benefit from clearer, more secure funding arrangements.’

Ms Morrison called for fairer funding: ‘Pharmacies are unable to pass these overheads on to NHS patients via higher prices, so their funding must fully account for them and for all other costs associated with providing NHS services.’

Mr Gregg described the decision to offer relief to pubs as 'an insult to hard-pressed pharmacists who are still struggling under the effects of historic NHS underfunding that simply isn't sufficient to pay inflated business rates, medicine prices and their other bills’.

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He added: 'Pharmacies are not like pubs, cafes or restaurants. They receive 90% of their funding from the NHS and cannot simply increase their prices for the nation's prescriptions to absorb this eye-watering increase.’

The NPA has previously called for pharmacies to receive the same business rates support as GP practices and NHS dentists, which can claim reimbursement through NHS England and NHS Business Services Authority, respectively.