Janet Morrison: "Eventual outcome of spending review needs to tackle pharmacy underfunding"

Community Pharmacy England (CPE) chief executive Janet Morrison has welcomed chancellor Rachel Reeves announcement today that day-to-day spending on the NHS will increase by £29bn a year but insisted that it must reflect in securing the future of pharmacy.

Reeves also revealed that the government will be increasing the NHS technology budget by almost 50 per cent, with £10bn of investment to "bring our analogue health system into the digital age, including through the NHS app".

“Today’s Spending Review announcement continues the government’s commitment to delivering care closer to home. We support this: community pharmacy has so much to offer to improve care for patients and the public, in their local communities, contributing to all of the government’s three healthcare shifts,” said Morrison.

However, despite the 2025/26 pharmacy contract of £3.073 billion being the highest uplift in the NHS, more than £800 million – a 30 per cent uplift as compared to 2023/24 – in extra funding for pharmacies, it still fell short of the costs outlined in the economic review of community pharmacy.

“Pharmacies have an astonishingly strong record on efficiency – the best in the NHS – and they have even more to offer if they can be properly supported, funded and integrated into primary care,” said Morrison.

“But years of underfunding and real-terms cuts have left community pharmacies struggling to cope, and even survive: we need the eventual outcomes of this Spending Review to put this right.

Morrison explained that there is still no clear path to the sustainable funding and operational model that community pharmacy ‘desperately needs, and which government has committed to’.

“We look forward to discussing this with Government very soon, and with the Spending Review now concluded, we want to see demonstrable action soon to show that progress is being made on the commitment to this future for community pharmacy,” she added.

Company Chemist Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison believed that investment in technology was a positive step in shifting healthcare from hospitals to the community but felt more support needed to be given to pharmacies to implement technology in their businesses.

“It is imperative that investment follows for community pharmacy, especially if the government is serious about delivering its three big shifts in healthcare: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention,” said Harrison.

“Pharmacies in England supply around 1.2 billion NHS medicines to the public each year. Our members have all invested heavily in infrastructure and technology to enhance efficiencies and improve productivity.

“Unfortunately, the current level of NHS funding for pharmacies is insufficient to sustain the network, resulting in the continued loss of local pharmacies across the country. More funding must be made available to pharmacies so they can continue to meet the growing demands of medicines supply and provide accessible care to patients wherever and whenever they need it.”

Henry Gregg, the chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association said the increase in funding for the NHS was good news but stressed that community pharmacies still faced "acute financial pressures".

“Pharmacies can free capacity across the NHS to deliver the Government’s vision and transform services for patients. They are medicines experts and ensure patients get the best outcomes, prevent hospital admissions, and helping get the best value from the ever-growing NHS drugs bill," he said.

“Real terms spending increases for the NHS are good news. But we shouldn’t underestimate the challenge of keeping pharmacies supporting millions of patients every day while they are still facing acute financial pressures despite additional funding this year.

“Estimates commissioned by the NHS suggest that the pharmacy service costs billions more to run than the NHS funds because of underfunding over the past decade so we need to work with ministers to shift care from hospitals to the community, prevent disease and unleash the power of technology.”