Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the announcement by Lloyds Pharmacies that they are closing 190 stores in England.

This Government is committed to maintaining access to National Health Service pharmaceutical services. 88% of the population are within a 20 minute walk of one of 11,688 community pharmacies in England and 40% of those pharmacies are within a ten minute walk of two or more others. In addition, we have seen the numbers of internet based pharmacies increase significantly in recent years, giving patients even more choice in how they receive their NHS pharmaceutical services.

Lloyds has made a commercial decision. It is not yet clear which pharmacies will close as a result of Lloyds Pharmacy’s announcement and the extent to which the company will divest the outlets it no longer wants to own. Lloyds Pharmacy made clear in their statement that they had looked carefully at the pharmacy provision in the affected areas to avoid overly impacting patients. We will continue to monitor the situation.