Key Summary
- Community pharmacy are dispensing increasing prescription volumes, expanded clinical services and growing population need.
- Employers continue to face financial pressures and their ability to invest in staff.
- The sector needs thousands more pharmacists simply to maintain current capacity
The government's ambition to deliver more care closer to home could be undermined by a shortage of workforce capacity in community pharmacy, according to a new report by the Community Pharmacy Workforce Development Group (CWDG).
The report, Delivering the 10-Year Plan – a review of the community pharmacy workforce, warns that headline workforce growth is not translating into greater capacity in the sector. Record numbers of people are studying pharmacy, entering foundation training and joining the professional register, yet community pharmacy now has less workforce capacity than it did four years ago.
Capacity falling as demand rises
The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) community pharmacists has fallen by 14% since 2021, while FTE pharmacy technicians have fallen by 11%.
The report said demand for community pharmacy services continues to climb through rising prescription volumes, expanded clinical services and growing population need.
"At the same time, workforce growth has not kept pace," it said. "Vacancy rates are still elevated; recruitment remains challenging and employers are facing financial pressures that limit their ability to invest in staff."
The CWDG attributed the decline to several factors:
- significant recruitment into hospitals and general practicea
- shift towards more part-time working
- growing numbers of pharmacists pursuing careers outside the NHS
Since 2019, about 9,000 additional pharmacy professionals have been funded into GP practices through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), and about 5,000 into hospitals. Much of that growth came from community pharmacy.
Services still growing
Despite these pressures, the report said community pharmacies continue to deliver high-quality patient care, and prescription volumes continue to rise. "The commissioning of new pharmacy services means community pharmacies now deliver over 30m clinical touchpoints each year," it said.
However, the report cautioned that even with efficiency gains from automation, hub-and-spoke dispensing and better use of skill-mix, the gap between demand and capacity is widening.
The sector needs thousands more pharmacists simply to maintain current capacity, before accounting for the expanded role community pharmacy is expected to play under the NHS 10 Year Plan.
Long-term workforce strategy
The CWDG is calling on the government and NHS to develop a long-term, system-wide pharmacy workforce strategy as part of the forthcoming NHS workforce plan.
The report said measures are needed to ensure professionals "choose community pharmacy, remain in community pharmacy, and can be employed sustainably within community pharmacy settings."
It warned: "The Workforce Plan must not rely on a simple assumption that more students will automatically lead to more registrants, or that more registrants will automatically increase workforce capacity."
The group wants the plan to reflect the realities of a changing community pharmacy landscape and has set out five priorities:
Match workforce supply to projected demand for existing services, alongside the service expansion envisaged in the 10-Year Health Plan.
- Recognise changing working patterns and career pathways, and account for their impact on workforce capacity.
- Ensure workforce policies implemented elsewhere in the NHS do not unintentionally destabilise other sectors.
- Support the retention, development and career progression of pharmacy teams.
- Provide sustainable funding for both core and additional services, enabling employers to invest in the workforce capacity needed to meet growing demand.
Ageing workforce adds to risk
The report also highlighted significant demographic change. Around 7% of community pharmacists and 9% of pharmacy technicians are aged 60 or over and can reasonably be expected to retire within the next decade. In some areas, pharmacists aged 60 or above make up almost one in five of all pharmacists, creating the potential for a wave of retirements.
NHS needs to do more
Marc Donovan, Healthcare Development Director at Boots and Chair of The Community Pharmacy Workforce Development Group said: “The headline workforce figures paint a positive picture. More people are studying pharmacy, undertaking training and joining the professional register.
"But those numbers mask what is happening on the ground. Community pharmacy's capacity is shrinking, with fewer full-time equivalent pharmacists available to deliver patient care than four years ago.
"If the NHS wants community pharmacy to do more, it must plan for the workforce needed to do it. Otherwise, we risk building plans for expanded patient care on capacity that simply isn’t there.”
Responding to the CPWDG report, National Pharmacy Association Chief Executive Henry Gregg said: "The report is right that although the pharmacy workforce has grown in recent years, its masks significant challenges and a falling number of FTE pharmacists is concerning, with more and more pharmacists finding careers outside of community pharmacy.
"However, the work of pharmacists and wider pharmacy teams is changing drastically, including new developments in prescribing, AI, a rise in automation and the development of hub and spoke models in some pharmacies.
"We agree that the NHS must do more to help manage these changes and support the pharmacy workforce to flourish, improving retention in the sector. This could include commissioning more prescribing in community pharmacies, utilising the skills many pharmacists are developing to provide more services to patients."
The CPWDG is a cross-sector working group that brings together education and training leads from across the community pharmacy sector.
It also brings together representatives from the Company Chemists' Association (CCA), the Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) and the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
