Community Pharmacy England has today released a national report highlighting how pharmacy owners across England are dipping into personal savings to support their businesses, effectively subsidising the provision of NHS services.
The Pharmacy Pressures Survey 2025: Funding and Profitability Report sets out once again the desperate financial position community pharmacies are in as a result of the long-term underfunding of the sector.
The report, which is being shared with national media, MPs and other pharmacy advocates this week, is based on views shared by the owners of over 4,300 pharmacy premises in England and 1,600 pharmacy team members in this year’s Pressures Survey. The findings echo those of a recent survey by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), with whom we have worked on media coverage.
A range of critical challenges are impacting on pharmacies of all shapes and sizes, from ongoing medicine supply issues and workforce shortages, to mounting operational costs and inflationary pressures. Almost all (99%) pharmacy owners identified finances as their top concern, with nine in ten reporting increased costs over the previous year.
These pressures are taking their toll, limiting pharmacy owners’ ability to keep their businesses afloat and deliver a full range of services for patients. Only 6% of pharmacy owners said their businesses were profitable and over a third (37%) were unable to pay wholesaler bills on time.
Six in ten pharmacy owners said they hadn’t taken a salary in the past year and 45% had used personal savings to support their business. They also talked of the impact on their health, with some unable to sleep due to constant worrying about their finances, and others concerned about the long-term health impacts.
The financial pressures have also been impacting patients, as pharmacy owners have had to make very difficult decisions, including cutting back on some national services (15%) and reducing opening hours (42%) in order to keep their businesses going.
While some improvement was identified following the 2024/25 and 2025/26 funding settlement*, the outlook remains deeply concerning. Just 9% of pharmacy owners say the threats to their business are now manageable, whilst a fifth (21%) say they will not survive another year. Over half (56%) say that they are looking at ways to reduce their costs further in a way that will have an impact on patients.
Community Pharmacy England is calling for further increases to pharmacy’s core funding to reflect the true cost of delivering services – closing the funding gap – and to secure the long-term sustainability of the community pharmacy network.
Read the 2025 Funding and Profitability Report
Note: this is one in a series of reports developed about the findings of the 2025 Pharmacy Pressures Survey. Our Medicines Supply Report generated significant media coverage earlier this year and we will continue to use the survey’s results to highlight other severe challenges impacting on the community pharmacy sector.
We worked with the NPA to secure national media coverage in the Mirror, the Independent and a number of other outlets, warning that pharmacies in England are still ‘teetering on the brink’ and that many are still at risk of closure. We are also sharing the results with a wide range of media publications, MPs, Peers, think tanks, patient groups and other pharmacy advocates. For support with media interviews, please contact comms.team@cpe.org.uk for assistance.
*As part of a follow-up survey of the owners of over 3,500 pharmacy premises conducted in April 2025.
Resources and support for pharmacies
Pharmacy owners can help raise awareness of this issue using our new resources:
Pharmacy owners and LPCs are also encouraged to continue to engage with their local MPs to seek support for pharmacy.
Meanwhile, views from pharmacy owners, LPCs and national pharmacy organisations are being compiled to inform Community Pharmacy England’s positioning and objectives for the upcoming negotiations, where we’ll be pressing for more improvements for the sector. You can feed directly into this work through our summer survey.
Further support is available in our Top tips to maximise dispensing income factsheet, which links to a wealth of resources and serves as a handy written checklist. The charity Pharmacist Support also offers financial assistance for pharmacists and their families.
Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Community Pharmacy England, said:
“Community pharmacies across England have been under unbearable pressures for a number of years now, leaving pharmacy owners with impossible choices to make.
“Our Pharmacy Pressures Survey 2025 reveals a deeply concerning trend of pharmacy owners fighting to keep their business afloat, and facing disastrous personal financial situations as a consequence. It is unthinkable that entrepreneurial, patient-facing health professionals who have spent their lives providing high quality NHS services, are being left in this very desperate position. Pharmacy owners should not be subsidising NHS services from their own pockets. They should be focusing on supporting patients and planning for the future, not worrying about how to keep the lights on.
“Despite a very welcome funding uplift this April, this remains a frightening time for very many pharmacy owners, who have put their personal financial situations on the line to keep serving their patients and local communities. We urgently need the Government and NHS to support the sector, increasing core funding to reflect the true cost of delivering services and securing the long-term future of this essential part of our healthcare system.”
Anil Sharma, independent community pharmacy owner in the East of England and CPE Regional Representative, said:
“Owning a community pharmacy business in 2025 is an intensely stressful experience. It is an endless juggle between trying to manage your patients, who are quite rightly upset and angry – for instance when we can’t get hold of medicines for them – and trying to get everything else done.
“I know this is happening to all the pharmacy owners on the Committee and those we represent across the country. It’s exhausting: we can barely have any sort of a personal or family life. And that’s before you consider the financial worries – the wondering every month if we will be paid enough to cover our wholesaler bills; the concern that if another burned out member of staff leaves it will take us months and months to recruit again; and the lack of clarity about the longer term future, as we only have a one-year funding settlement.”
Mike Hewitson, independent community pharmacy owner in the south of England and CPE Committee Member, said:
“I talk to lots of pharmacy owners across England on a regular basis, and many of them, like me, are in a terrible financial position. For decades we have done everything the Government and NHS have asked of us – dispensing many more prescriptions year on year, finding ways to be efficient about that, and vastly expanding the range of clinical services that we offer. Yet month in and month out, the numbers simply do not add up.
“I run two pharmacies and I’ve been forced to make tough decisions about reducing our opening hours or cutting staff numbers. It can’t be right that people delivering high quality NHS services, with a very deep focus on their patients, are facing financial ruin. And this is not isolated cases – many hundreds of pharmacy owners like me are having to take steps to save their businesses, and of course this is taking a toll. I often receive late night messages from fellow pharmacy owners in despair – it’s frightening, and they just don’t know what to do anymore. Dedicated healthcare professionals should not have been put in this position.”
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