Community pharmacies are on life support as Labour drags its heels on handing over the money they need to stay afloat, writes Giles Sheldrick.
Ms Reeves has extinguished hope with her tax grabs. (Image: Getty)
It has been a bitter pill to swallow for those clobbered by the relentless tax snatches of Chancellor Rachel Reeves during her ruinous 18-month run at the Treasury.
OAPs were first, then private schools, farmers, and publicans. The list is endless.
And we can now add to it the dedicated but dwindling army running Britain’s pharmacies – institutions that have stood as beacons of hope on the battered high street for decades, that many people, especially pensioners, rely on.
Like shops, they pay business rates calculated from their rateable value, size, and location, but unlike GP surgeries, they are not exempt.
It means that at a time chemists are being told to do more work for less money – primarily because of the shambolic state of the NHS and access to it – Ms Reeves is happy to bite the hand that helps the public.
The diagnosis is that pharmacies are dealing with enormous workloads at a time when the network has slumped to its smallest level for 20 years.
Data show that 2024/2025 was the fourth consecutive year in which the number of prescriptions dispensed from community pharmacies in England rose.
Some 1.16 billion items were dispensed last year – a rise of almost one-fifth in a decade.
These cherished places – an oasis of calm amid the maelstrom unleashed by Labour – have become the NHS dumping ground where those who can’t see a doctor, or are shunted around the system, are told to go for treatment.
Ms Reeves is leading Labour’s dogma-driven agenda. (Image: Getty)
Labour wants to transfer more services to community pharmacies but has failed to provide the funding required to stabilise the network or provide a platform to enable it to deliver an expanded range of care to patients.
Its utopian vision of the future of healthcare in the UK sees treatment shoved into the community. And while that’s what most people would agree with, there is a lack of understanding of the dire situation on the ground.
More than 650 pharmacies closed in England and Wales last year, leaving barely 10,000 now operational.
It is a situation that cannot continue, especially as an increasingly elderly population grapples with more complex health needs.
It seems incomprehensible that for someone in charge of the nation’s finances, the penny hasn’t dropped for Ms Reeves.
Yet that is the problem with Labour and its dogma-driven agenda, which has only one route: significant tax rises for businesses and the hardworking to fund monstrous welfare spending.
There have been at least 14 significant strikes by resident doctors since March 2023.
Under Labour, the doctor won’t see you now. Soon, the chemist won’t be able to, either.
Just as landlords and businesses repeatedly warned how Labour’s Jobs Tax would hurt the high street and mean last orders for many, the move could prove similarly fatal for pharmacies.
It has shown once again that Ms Reeves is a one-trick pony and she is leading the country to the knacker’s yard.
