Pharmacies: Government Funding
Debate between Ben Coleman and Sadik Al-Hassan(2Â weeks, 4Â days ago)
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Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. As Members might know, I am here today wearing two hats, both pharmacy-shaped, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy and as a community pharmacist for nearly 20 years. The brilliant, unrelenting work of my colleagues in pharmacy teams I saw throughout my career is the reason why this debate is so important. Pharmacists know what it is like to be the first port of call for an unwell patient, to deliver vaccinations to an entire community, and to work exhausting, long days.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) on securing the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) will be aware that measles outbreaks are increasing, not least because of a decline in measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. The Government told the Health and Social Care Select Committee, on which I serve, that they need to do more with schools and GPs. We contend that they need to use pharmacies far more. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that as all families visit pharmacies, the Government should enable pharmacies to give MMR vaccinations and grip this properly, so we can crack the challenge of the measles outbreaks, which seem to be increasing in our country?
Sadik Al-Hassan
I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Select Committee. I agree with him. Pharmacy is well placed to help offer additional vaccination services as well as help with a suite of other minor ailments with an expanded Pharmacy First.
I greatly welcome the uplift for 2026-27 in the pharmacy contract, but let us be honest about the scale of the problem: funding fell by £800 million in real terms between 2015-16 and 2025-26, even as prescription volumes rose by 20%. Last year’s funding settlement was a great amount, but that has been eaten up by a great amount of costs, and the Government’s independent analysis found a £2 billion annual funding gap. Nationally we have lost nearly 1,500 pharmacies since 2017—a 15% contraction of the network. In my own constituency of North Somerset, that story is written in bricks and mortar. We have six fewer pharmacies than in 2016.