Pharmacy directors feel trapped in the NHS funding system

Pharmacies have said they feel trapped in an NHS system that does not give them the money they need to provide medicines to their customers.

The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has called for an annual funding increase of £1.7 billion and some pharmacy owners have said they will reduce opening hours and stop home deliveries in protest.

Sherry Samrai, manager of Woodside Pharmacy in Telford, said she had to turn away frustrated patients because she could not justify the cost of purchasing certain medications.

The government said it was seeking to undertake “fundamental reforms” and had “inherited a system that has been neglected for too long”.

Nigel Dugmore, of Donnington Pharmacy, also in Telford, said the cost of buying shares had risen by up to 60% in recent years, but the money he received from the NHS to fund the The purchase remained the same.

The NPA is not a union, but represents 6,500 community pharmacies across the UK.

He said 700 pharmacies had closed in England in the last two years alone and he had no choice but to recommend that pharmacies cease their services in the new year if funding was not forthcoming. not increased.

Ms Samrai said: “We are currently working on very tight margins with our wholesalers.

“We turn away a lot of patients, for example on treatment for hypertension – it’s just not worth dispensing it to them.”

She has been a pharmacy manager for 15 years and said large chains might get some benefit from bulk ordering, but it wasn’t easy for community pharmacies like the one she runs.

Letting patients down, because she can’t afford certain medications, has been difficult for her staff, she said, and “it really affects us.”

An NHS spokesperson said it was “working with the government and pharmacies to find a way forward so that patients continue to receive high quality care”.

Mr Dugmore, who is also a Conservative councilor in Telford, admitted the current system was not working.

He said: “For a long time the amount paid by the NHS for medicines has been less than the cost of buying them. »

He said pharmacies were facing a five-year funding deal from the Government, which the Treasury “won’t budge on”, but that wholesalers had increased their prices.

“You would think there would have been escalation clauses,” he said.

To make matters worse, he said pharmacies had to buy drugs before they could apply to the NHS for funding to pay for them, which can take up to two months to arrive.

This can put extra pressure on her community pharmacy in winter, when she has to purchase additional cold and flu treatments.

Onkar Singh, pharmacist and director of Prentex, which runs eight pharmacies in Wolverhampton and Walsall, said a number of pharmacies had closed recently and “funding had dropped like a stone in the last five years”.

But he decided not to vote in the NPA vote for protest action, fearing it would worry his patients.

“We have already received calls from a number of patients regarding the change in services,” he said.

“So it was about trying to reassure them.”

Nigel Dugmore also said he did not support the action and would not reduce the service he provided.

He said: “I couldn’t tell someone I can’t treat you because the NHS won’t pay – you need to remember why you’re here.

“Why should patients suffer?”