Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the planned changes in community pharmacy funding in (a) 2016-17 and (b) 2017-18 will fall on pharmacies based in each deprivation decile Lower-Layer Super Output Areas.

The reforms to community pharmacy are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. Although it is possible that the closure of some pharmacies may result from the savings we need to make, that is not our aim. We are not able to assess which pharmacies may close because we do not know the financial viability of individual businesses or the extent to which they derive income from services commissioned locally by the National Health Service or local authorities or have non-NHS related income.

We have created a Pharmacy Access Scheme (PhAS) to safeguard patient access in areas with fewer pharmacies and higher health needs. Details of the PhAS were published on 20 October 2016. All small and medium pharmacies that are located more than a mile from another pharmacy will qualify for the scheme.

Currently, 1,340 pharmacies qualify for the PhAS. One pharmacy within Kingston upon Hull North qualifies. It is within the lowest decile of deprivation.

PhAS pharmacies will receive fixed monthly payments, in addition to other fees and allowances, including the quality payment. These will be roughly equivalent to the funding reduction for each pharmacy, with a small efficiency saving. On average, this will equate to about £11,600 per annum in 2016/17 and about £17,600 per annum in 2017/18 for each eligible pharmacy.

Reviews of eligibility will be granted for pharmacies that may have narrowly missed out on the PhAS through the distance criteria, but are in areas of high deprivation and critical for patient access. This will cover pharmacies that are located in the top 20% most deprived areas in England, and which are located 0.8 miles or more from another pharmacy. For this purpose, we will look at the top 20% of Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs), when ranked by the Index of Multiple Deprivation. LSOAs are a standardised unit of geography in the United Kingdom. An LSOA varies in geographical size according to population density, but has an average population of about 1,600 in 2011.

Additional funding for successful reviews under this “near miss” criterion will be made available as required. This will influence the overall distribution of community pharmacy funding, including in deprived areas.