The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pharmacy has published a new report, The Future of Community Pharmacy in England, recognising the essential and central role that community pharmacies must play in achieving the Government’s ambitions for health and productivity.
The report emphasises that community pharmacies are vital to boosting NHS performance, tackling health inequalities, and delivering more care closer to home, stressing that achieving these Government goals will be impossible “without fully mobilising the community pharmacy workforce.”
Building on the APPG’s 2023 inquiry, the report draws from oral evidence sessions held in December 2024 and May 2025. These sessions brought together pharmacy professionals, patient representatives, NHS leaders and wider health stakeholders who all made the case for a more strategic and better-resourced approach to pharmacy services.
The report presents an ambition for community pharmacy as “the NHS’s most responsive, efficient, and equitable access point for care” achievable through targeted investment, digital integration, and strong national leadership. This vision is about more than just improving pharmacy services, it’s about building a stronger NHS, a healthier population, and improving productivity.
This ambition aligns closely with the Vision for Community Pharmacy, a report we commissioned from the Nuffield Trust and The King’s Fund, which sets out how the sector could transform over the next decade.
Systemic pressures must be addressed
The APPG also heard consistent evidence that community pharmacies are under increasing pressure due to long-term underfunding, fragmented commissioning, workforce shortages, limited digital access, and insufficient integration into wider health policy.
While progress has been made, including the £800 million funding uplift secured as part of the most recent pharmacy settlement, significant challenges remain. As the report makes clear, sustained and strategic investment is necessary to enable community pharmacies to expand their clinical role and support NHS transformation at scale.
Key recommendations
The report calls for coordinated action across six priority areas to secure the future of community pharmacy:
- Provide a long-term funding settlement
An inflation-linked uplift is essential to close the £2 billion annual shortfall. - Support the existing network to deliver care at scale
Secure core funding and national recognition needed to protect pharmacy access, particularly in deprived and rural communities, and to ensure alignment with wider NHS objectives. - Expand Pharmacy First into a national, walk-in clinical service
The scheme should offer broader treatment options, independent prescribing rights, and full integration into primary care with equitable funding across regions. - Empower the pharmacy workforce and invest in prescribing
Independent prescribing must be accelerated with proper funding and training. Broader workforce development is also critical to address burnout and staffing shortages. - Implement the APPG’s recommendations on medicines supply and substitution
Legislative reform and a national strategy for medicines supply are urgently needed. - Integrate community pharmacy into NHS systems and leadership
Pharmacy must have full read/write access to patient records.
The message from the report is clear, pharmacies stand ready to do more, but action is needed to close the funding gap, support their workforce, and fully integrate pharmacy as a central pillar of primary care in England.
Zoe Long, CPE Director of Communications, Corporate and Public Affairs, said:
“This report from the Pharmacy APPG powerfully reinforces our Vision for Community Pharmacy and a future where pharmacies are fully recognised as essential pillars of primary care. It’s encouraging to see such strong alignment on the urgent need for sustainable funding, workforce investment, digital integration, and national commissioning standards.
Community pharmacies are uniquely placed to deliver prevention, early intervention, and accessible care at scale, all of which are central to the Government’s 10 Year Health Plan. This report lays out the practical steps needed to realise that ambition. With the right investment and support, pharmacies can play a transformative role in strengthening the NHS and improving population health. We urge the Government to act now on this report and unlock the full potential of community pharmacy.”
About the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pharmacy
The APPG on Pharmacy works to raise awareness of the of the pharmacy profession and promote pharmacists’ current and potential contribution to the health of the nation. The APPG is an independent cross-party parliamentary group, currently chaired by Labour MP Sadik Al-Hassan. We co-fund the Secretariat of the group along with the CCA, NPA, IPA and RPS.
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