Pharmacies: Government Funding

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) on securing the debate, which is important and timely, especially considering that we had the remaining stages of the Health Bill this week.

Community pharmacies are a vital part of the NHS, especially in places like West Dorset, where they provide essential medicines, advice and care close to home. At a time when pharmacies are facing severe financial and workforce pressures, we must recognise their contribution and ensure that they receive the funding, support and protection they need. We are asking more and more of community pharmacies, while for too long we have expected them to absorb rising costs with inadequate funding.

In West Dorset, 18 community pharmacies serve a population of around 94,000 people. In a typical month, they dispense around 155,000 prescriptions. Since the introduction of Pharmacy First in January 2024, pharmacies in West Dorset have helped to avoid as many as 8,737 GP appointments. Those figures demonstrate the enormous contribution pharmacies make to our local NHS and why we cannot afford to lose them.

Today, people are more likely to live with multiple long-term conditions, require regular prescriptions and need advice and support close to home. For someone living in a rural village, a pharmacy is the most accessible point of contact with the NHS. That is why the funding model should properly recognise rurality and population age.

Nationally, community pharmacy funding in 2025-26 was around £800 million lower in real terms than in 2015-16, despite a 16% increase in the number of NHS prescription items dispensed over that period. Since 2017, there has been a net loss of 147 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies, which is 15% of the network. I welcome the Government’s recent 10.3% funding increase, worth £340 million, but their own independent economic analysis identified a funding gap of around £2 billion, so the increase does not close the gap. Some pharmacies in West Dorset have reported to me six-figure annual shortfalls.

Poor funding leads to fewer staff, and fewer staff leads to shorter opening hours, temporary closures and fewer services being offered. It means that fewer people receive their medicines and fewer patients are able to access care. In NHS Dorset, there were 207 full-time equivalent pharmacists in 2023 and 47 vacancies, which is a vacancy rate of 19%.

In places such as West Dorset, in rural Britain, recruiting a permanent pharmacist can be extremely difficult. Pharmacies have to pay more to attract pharmacists from elsewhere or bring in locums, who have to travel significant distances. Those costs do not exist to the same extent in densely populated urban areas. It is therefore wrong to design a funding system that treats every pharmacy as if it operates in the same circumstances.

The pharmacy access scheme provides some support for isolated pharmacies, but its funding pot is just £20 million, which is nowhere near sufficient to deal with the structural challenges facing rural pharmacy provision in England. We need a funding formula that properly recognises rurality, population age, workforce pressures and the cost of serving sparsely populated communities.

Funding is only one part of the problem. We also need stronger regulation and stronger powers to intervene when large corporate pharmacy operators fail. Jhoots operated 150 branches across England. In West Dorset, its pharmacies in Bridport and Lyme Regis were closed for months, disrupting prescription access for more than 12,000 people who rely on those services. The impact was felt throughout our community. It was felt by the patients who struggled to access their medicines and by other healthcare providers who had to deal with the consequences. It was felt devastatingly by pharmacy staff. Staff across multiple sites reported going months without pay, despite receiving payslips and seeing deductions for tax and pensions. Some were unable to pay their rent or household bills, and some relied on food banks and could not buy their children school uniform.

I pay tribute to the amazing staff in Bridport and Lyme Regis for the resilience they showed during that time. The support shown to them by the local community was outstanding. They did not deserve to be treated that way by the pharmacy owners.

Our regulatory framework was largely developed when pharmacies were mainly independently owned businesses operating one or maybe two pharmacies, and it has not kept pace with the growth of large corporate operators controlling extensive networks. Local integrated care boards, local authorities and national bodies need powers to intervene quickly, protect patients and staff, secure medicines and ensure continuity of service.

When Jhoots’s services collapsed, I raised the issue through an urgent question in the House, and there was clear cross-party support for legislative action to ensure that that kind of crisis cannot happen again. I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), who campaigned tirelessly alongside me. His help and advice were invaluable during that period, so I am extremely grateful to him.

We need to strengthen the powers available to intervene when a provider fails to meet contractual patient safety or workforce obligations. We need mechanisms to allow alternative providers to step in quickly. We must hold the corporate bodies—not the pharmacies—accountable, and where necessary take away their rights to control an essential service. We need to protect pharmacy staff when a provider collapses. Protecting the workforce is inseparable from protecting patient safety.

I say politely to the Minister that when I met her predecessor, he asked for those powers so that he could step in during the Jhoots scandal. We tried to introduce them through amendments to the Health Bill, but they were not accepted. Will the Minister please meet me and other experts, such as the hon. Member for North Somerset, as her predecessor did? Let us get her the powers to prevent this from ever happening again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I absolutely agree.

I was going to say a few words about Pharmacy First, the importance of which has been recognised this afternoon. Recent data shows growing public awareness of the service, with the proportion of people who know that pharmacies can treat Pharmacy First conditions increasing from 71% to 79%. There is more we can do, however, so I acknowledge the point made by right hon. and hon. Members.

Pharmacy First has also demonstrated what pharmacists can achieve when empowered to deliver more care. The introduction of NHS pharmacist prescribing will take that a significant step further. Evidence from the independent prescribing pathfinder programme is really encouraging. Across 200 sites, pharmacists delivered more than 34,000 consultations. Around 60% resulted in a prescribing decision, and 97% were completed without a referral to a GP. That demonstrates the real-world potential of pharmacist prescribing to improve access to care and relieve pressures.

The ’26-27 community pharmacy contractual framework builds on these lessons, as NHS pharmacist prescribing is rolled out nationally from autumn this year. That delivers on our pledges in the 10-year plan. We want to unlock the full potential of community pharmacy. It is not just about pharmacists; we are also enabling pharmacy technicians to take greater responsibility within dispensing processes, including allowing checked and bagged medicines to be handed out when the pharmacist is not present.

[Edward Morello]

I thank the Minister for being willing to meet me and the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) to discuss some of the issues raised today. She mentioned that officials are looking at whether legislation is necessary; will she ask them to consider whether the amendments I tabled to the Health Bill would deliver the powers she needs? If so, will the Government support them in the Lords?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am very happy to have a look at the amendments tabled by the hon. Gentleman and to meet him and my hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset. I cannot promise anything else, but I am happy to have a look.

Community pharmacists are a vital part of the NHS and of the communities they serve. They already dispense hundreds of millions of prescriptions every year, but their role is growing: preventing illness, treating common conditions, prescribing where appropriate and improving access to care. Our investment, reforms and 10-year health plan all point in the same direction—a stronger, sustainable community pharmacy sector. This Government are committed to working with the sector to deliver that vision.