Two thirds of pharmacies ‘could close next year’ as financial pressures leave many on the brink
Pharmacists will go to extreme lengths to keep their stores open in the midst of financial pressures.
Some resort to using personal savings and even restart their homes to keep their business alive, and experts put many people in the industry on the threshold.
Now, pharmacy leaders called the government to increase funds for services to secure the long -term sustainability of the industry.
It comes from 10 pharmacies as a survey that almost four of them cannot pay invoices for the drug.
800 pharmacy owners or approximately 4,300 pharmacies, including the opinions of Community Pharmacy England (CPE) survey, 45 percent of the last year to subsidize their pharmacies to subsidize personal savings or rearrangement, while determining 37 percent of wholesale bills could not pay.
Only 6 percent of their pharmacies are profitable, more than half (51 percent) lost money, he said.
CPE General Manager Janet Morrison, representing more than 10,000 community pharmacies, said pharmacists have been under unbearable pressure for several years ”.
“When the increasing costs throughout the board of directors are combined with a real decrease, it enabled pharmacy holders to make impossible choices – for larger companies, we have seen tremendous personal transitions for the closure of pharmacy branches and for smaller independent pharmacies, and we saw an increasing number of business contradictions.”
“The questionnaire also reveals that there is a tendency of pharmacy owners struggling to keep their jobs alive and as a result they face disaster.
Entrepreneur spending their lives by providing high -quality NHS services, it is unthinkable that health professionals towards the patient are left in this very desperate position.
“Pharmacy owners should not subsidize NHS services from their own pockets.
“They should focus on supporting patients and planning the future, they do not worry how to keep the lights open.”
Analysis by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), representing 6,000 independent community pharmacies in the UK, found that 72 pharmacies, which were equivalent in the UK this year, were closed.
A separate survey consisting of 600 NPA members found that 63 percent of pharmacies believed that they should be closed well for the next 12 months without additional financing.
Henry GregG, General Manager of NPA, said: “No NHS service should be supported by personal savings or mortgages of individuals who run it.
“It is clear that the scale of the difficulty inherited by this government is enormous.
“Despite the recent positive movements in the right direction, these research shows that many pharmacies are swinging on the brink of the threshold and that they need support if they will survive and reach their full potential.
Elsewhere, the NPA questionnaire found that 94 percent of its members thought that the latest financing agreement, which includes record investment in the sector, did not bring financial stability.
Anil Sharma, an independent community pharmacy in the east of England, described having a community pharmacy business in 2025 as a “intense stressful experience ..
“Trying to manage your patients who are very sad and angry – for example, if we cannot keep the drugs for them – an endless balancing between trying to handle everything,” he added.
“We can’t have exhausting, any personal or family life.”
Mr. GregG said that the government’s 10 -year plan for NHS is a historical opportunity to finally shift care to communities and expand the role of the community pharmacy ”, but“ Pharmacies cannot pay their bills and cannot keep their doors open ”.
Iz We need additional financing to balance this great opportunity and to ensure the maintenance of the pharmacy network and allow pharmacies to invest in new services, ”he said.
A spokesperson for a health and social care department said: uz We are working to turn the community pharmacists in the heart of local health services and on the verge of collapse of the sector on the verge of collapse.
“We want them to play a greater role in shifting their care to the hospitals and the community.
“This year, we increased the financing to the community pharmacies to about 3.1 billion – we represented the biggest increase in the financing of any part of NHS for 2025/2026 – released more services to patients and released GP appointments.”
