Pharmacy: Staff
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of workforce levels on the ability of community pharmacies to meet service demands.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
For 2025/26, funding for the core community pharmacy contractual framework was increased to £3.1 billion, in agreement with Community Pharmacy England, which represents all pharmacy contactors including independent pharmacies. This represented the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service at the time, namely over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26.
The resilience of United Kingdom supply chains is a key priority, and we are continually learning and seeking to improve the way we work to both manage and help prevent supply issues and avoid shortages. On 15 August 2025, the Government published a policy paper, Managing a robust and resilient supply of medicines. We will continue to engage with industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and other stakeholders across the supply chain as we progress work to co-design and deliver these actions.
Regarding the pharmacy workforce, as private businesses pharmacy employers have a clear role to ensure staff levels are adequate to deliver commissioned NHS services. The annual community pharmacy workforce survey provides data on current workforce levels. The survey is an important tool to help inform workforce planning for employers and NHS integrated care boards. The Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey data is available at the following link:
We will publish the 10 Year Workforce Plan by the end of 2025. This will look at how healthcare professionals can work at the top of their skills, and ask what workforce we need, what they should do, where they should be deployed and what skills they should have.
To support pharmacy employers develop their staff and deliver quality NHS services, NHS England provides several fully funded national training opportunities for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. This includes independent prescriber training, clinical examination skills, and training the next generation of education supervisors.
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