Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the closure of pharmacy practices on health inequalities in the Nottingham East constituency.

The Department closely monitors the market to ensure people in England have good access to National Health Service pharmaceutical services. Despite the increase in pharmacy closures seen in recent years, there are a similar number of pharmacies to ten years ago and 80% of the population live within 20 minutes’ walking distance of a pharmacy. There are relatively more pharmacies in areas of higher deprivation than in areas with lower levels of deprivation within Nottingham East constituency according to the latest, December 2022, data.