Pharmacies to treat 14 conditions from January as 450 more chemists close

Community pharmacies in England will be able to assess and prescribe for 14 common conditions from January, including chest infections in adults, shingles, acute ear infections in children and uncomplicated urinary tract infections in men, under an expansion of the Pharmacy First scheme announced on Wednesday.

The scheme, which began in 2024 with seven conditions, has handled 11 million consultations and is credited by NHS England with freeing up about 4 million GP appointments a year. The new list will also allow pharmacists to issue repeat prescriptions for contraception and blood pressure medication without a GP’s involvement for patients whose condition is stable.

But the announcement came on the same day that the sector’s trade body published figures showing that 450 pharmacies had closed in the year to September, bringing the number in England to 10,100, down from 11,700 in 2017. Closures have been concentrated in the most deprived fifth of neighbourhoods, which have lost 22% of their chemists, and in rural areas.

“We are being asked to do more of the NHS’s work with fewer places to do it,” said Amrit Dhillon, who owns a pharmacy in Walsall and sits on the board of Community Pharmacy England. “I get £17 for a Pharmacy First consultation that takes me 15 minutes, during which I am not dispensing, not serving and not supervising. I do it because it is the right thing for the patient and the right thing for the NHS, and I lose money every time.”

The government has raised the consultation fee from £15 to £17 and increased the core funding contract for 2026-27 by 4.1%, but the trade body says that is below the rise in the national living wage, which accounts for most pharmacies’ staff costs. An independent review of pharmacy economics commissioned by ministers last year found that 78% of pharmacies were loss-making on their NHS work.

In Whitby, where one of the town’s three pharmacies closed in August, Janet Rowbotham, 68, said the remaining two were “a scrum” on Monday mornings. “They are lovely, and they will do your blood pressure and your ears and your whatever, but you wait 40 minutes to pick up a prescription,” she said. “If the GP is sending people to the chemist and the chemist is closing, where exactly am I meant to go?”

The Department of Health and Social Care said the expansion was backed by £215m of additional funding and that it was “working with the sector on a sustainable long-term model”. NHS England said pharmacies that took part in Pharmacy First had been less likely to close than those that did not.

Dhillon said he would sign up for all 14 conditions. “Of course I will. I would just like to still be here in 2028 to deliver them.”