Closure warning for NI pharmacies over funding difficulties

A body representing community pharmacists in Northern Ireland has said continuing funding difficulties will result in more pharmacies closing.

Community Pharmacy NI (CPNI) said the sector had been “grappling with a funding deficit of £20m per year for more than a decade”.

It is addressing Stormont’s Health Committee on Thursday.

CPNI said a rise in the National Insurance rate for employers, along with wage increases, will add to the current funding deficit.

Turlough Hamill, who is a community pharmacist in Portadown, County Armagh, said “community pharmacies are at a breaking point and the financial pressures passed an unsustainable level long ago”.

“It is no exaggeration to say that without prompt intervention, the very future of community pharmacy services is at risk, leaving patients without essential access to medicines and advice,” he added.

“Many contractors have had to subsidise costs with personal savings or defer payments, resulting in medicines being withheld, as well as take out loans at high interest rates.”

Mr Hamill said there had been “17 pharmacy closures in the two-year period to December 2024 compared to nine in the previous eight years”.

“Of course, we acknowledge the funding challenges within the health service, but it is important that we bring a sense of reality here today to the situation facing community pharmacy in Northern Ireland and by extension, primary care and the wider health service,” he said.

“We are calling on the Department of Health to address and resolve the fundamental funding model once and for all.”

Last month, a firm with more than 20 pharmacies across Northern Ireland said it may have to make redundancies or close stores if it does not get financial help to cover rises in National Insurance contributions and the National Living Wage.

At the time, the Department of Health said it “recognised these increased costs” but that it faced a “significant funding gap” over the next year.

CPNI said in a recent survey of community pharmacy contractors, “43% of respondents had been unable to pay their medicine bills on time over recent months”.

The survey also suggested “that in the past six months, a concerning 81% have said that they would not recommend the profession to others”.