Pharmacy bodies have welcomed the new funding settlement for community pharmacies, highlighting its potential to enhance patient access to care and medicines while addressing a decade of underinvestment in the sector.
Following a six-week consultation with Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the government has approved a record £3.073 billion funding package for 2025/26, along with an additional £215 million to support Pharmacy First and other Primary Care Recovery Plan services.
Tase Oputu, chair ofthe Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) England, praised the deal and its recognition of the vital role of community pharmacy as the front door of healthcare.
“This is the best deal community pharmacy in England has had in a decade, the largest increase in funding of any sector in the NHS,” she said, noting that it marks “a significant step forward in addressing the long term underinvestment in community pharmacy.”
“Whilst the settlement is a vote of confidence in the sector, we must acknowledge that ongoing economic pressures on pharmacies continue to bite.”
Tase emphasised that the sector has been under immense strain, taking its toll on wellbeing and morale.
She stressed the need for a fair and sustainable long-term resourcing to bridge the existing funding gap and support the government's ambitions outlined in the NHS 10-year plan.
Nick Kaye, chair of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), expressed relief that pharmacies now have certainty over their financial position with their first funding increase in 11 years.
“After a decade of 40 per cent cuts to their funding that has left the pharmacy network on its knees, it is good to see a concrete sign that ministers want to support pharmacies, which have so much potential to achieve the government’s vision of care closer to communities,” he said.
Regarding their collective action, he said: “No-one wants to reduce services through protest action so we’ll look carefully at the detail and consult our members, who are facing substantial cost increases from 1st April, to understand what this means for the future of their services so we can recommend next steps.”
He recognised that the government inherited an intolerable situation after more than a decade of real terms cuts and welcomed today's settlement is “a step forward.”
However, he stressed that the funding still falls “a long way short of the NHS’s own estimates of the true cost of providing pharmacy services”.
He affirmed the NPA’s commitment to working with ministers to “close the funding gap, reform the system and deliver the sustainable, stronger pharmacy service that millions of people need so much.”
The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA), the trade association for multiple pharmacy operators across Great Britain, also expressed encouragement over the funding boost.
“It is clear the Government has listened to the stark warnings that the CCA and others have given about the impact of a decade of underinvestment in this vital sector,” said CCA Chief Executive Malcolm Harrison.
He highlighted thatpharmacies in England procure and supply 1.1bn NHS-prescribed medicines every year and are visited by patients and the public 1.6m times a day.
However, findings of an economic independent review released on Friday clearly show that “there is a still a significant gap between the cost of delivering NHS community pharmacy services and what pharmacies will be paid.”
It found that 78% of pharmacies in England are “unsustainable in the short-run” and “there is a significant risk of interruption to NHS pharmaceutical services offered in these pharmacies”.
Around 47% of pharmacies were also identified as not profitable in their last accounting year.
Prof. Harry McQuillan, Chairman, Numark UK, described the funding uplift as "the first step towards stabilising the sector and securing its future" but pointed out that the increase does not deliver the output of the economic review.
"What it has done is begin the transition to delivering that figure over a short number of years and I commend the Government and CPE’s commitment to do so," he said.
"Looking at the final settlement and based on my experience in this field, I believe CPE has at a time of exceptional public fiscal constraint, achieved the best it could.
"This is the first significant investment in community pharmacy’s core funding in over a decade. It is a positive step forward and cannot be the last," he added.
