The future of community pharmacy in England: policy, stakeholder and public perspectives: a policy brief

Community pharmacies in England make a substantial contribution to the NHS and greater use of the sector could help to address current NHS challenges. However, a 25% real terms cut in funding since 2015 has led to significant numbers of pharmacy closures. A tipping point has been reached for community pharmacy in England, with an urgent need for a national vision and strategy to enable the sector to reach its potential. This project analysed community pharmacy policies and spoke to stakeholders to explore their opinions of the future of community pharmacy.

Patients value their community pharmacies, but staff feel demotivated, insecure and undervalued. Stakeholders and policies suggest that in the future, medicines should be supplied by automated ‘hub and spoke’ dispensing, enabling community pharmacy staff to provide services that relieve pressure on GP surgeries, such as long-term conditions management, urgent care and public health. This will require new training, access to health records and national commissioning with sufficient funding based on the quality of services.

To achieve this, professional leadership must be stronger, more unified and proactive. Professional policies should be more transparent with greater stakeholder involvement.

There is also a need for some community pharmacies to provide more space and greater privacy.