saveourpharmacies Campaign ⭐️⭐️
Imagine YOUR community without a community pharmacy 😧
(Long INFORMATIVE post alert!)
Community Pharmacy is at THE heart of every community of providing healthcare face-to-face to patients every single day without appointment.
Most often - professional healthcare advice that is not funded through NHS services.
We help navigate patients and give patients confidence through what can appear to be most challenging NHS landscape.
The following is from Our National Pharmacy Association :
Community pharmacies are going through the worst crisis in living memory.
1,400 community pharmacies have closed in the last decade.
10 pharmacies are closing a week, and three quarters of pharmacies are in the red.
Since 2015, funding for pharmacies in England has
been cut in real-terms by 40% and over 1,400 pharmacies have permanently closed in that time.
The majority of independent community pharmacies are small to medium sized family
businesses, therefore are especially vulnerable to these financial challenges.
New analysis by the National Pharmacy Association has found the number of pharmacies
closing this year is nearly 50% higher compared to the same stage in 2023. Between January
and April 177 pharmacies have closed, which is the equivalent to 10 local pharmacies closing
their doors every week so far this year.
The pharmacy network is shrinking, and closures are disproportionately affecting the most deprived communities.
⭐️ How can Community Pharmacy be saved?⭐️
By calling on the government to..
- To fill the growing funding gap, stabilises the network and stops the closures.
- By reversal of historic cuts to pharmacy funding, with community pharmacies receiving 2.5% of the NHS budget, up from the 1.6% they currently receive.
- commit to long-term sustainable funding and lead on transformational change, in order to empower community pharmacies to deliver more enhanced NHS patient care
⭐️⭐️ How YOU can help ⭐️⭐️
We’re asking you to back our #SaveOurPharmacies campaign to help keep pharmacies open.
Call into the pharmacy and sign the physical petition for government to provide immediate, fair and sustained funding, to safeguard NHS pharmacy services and ensure local pharmacies have a future.
We would like wider support from patients and customers to share the #saveourpharmacies to gain more awareness
Thank-you for reading this very long post!
Hope it’s put context into why we must ACT NOW to #saveourpharmacies
Neelm
Community Pharmacy England