Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment, his Department has made of the accuracy of pharmaceutical needs assessments undertaken by local health and wellbeing boards.

Decisions on applications to open a new pharmacy are delegated from NHS England to National Health Service integrated care boards, and the Department does not hold data on how many applications were rejected or the reasons for these rejections. If a pharmaceutical needs assessment (PNA) identifies a lack of need for a new pharmacy in the area, pharmacy contractors can still apply to open a pharmacy to provide benefits to the local communities that were not foreseen in the PNA.