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The Company Chemists’ Association has warned the Government there will be a shortfall of 16,000 full-time equivalent pharmacists by 2036-37 unless it stops their recruitment into other parts of primary care and improves local commissioning arrangements.

The CCA said its analysis showed the number of pharmacists working in the community has remained flat for several years and increasing numbers are opting to work part-time and in other settings.

It also said full-time equivalent pharmacists had fallen to “its lowest level since workforce data collection began in 2017” and insisted vacancy rates “have risen above one in every four posts in some areas of the country, including Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and Somerset”.

CCA: Not enough graduates to fill foundation training placements

The CCA warned there will not be enough graduates to fill foundation training placements unless the number of undergraduate pharmacy students increases.

Without action, it said, “the number of pharmacists practicing in community pharmacy could be lower in 2036-37 than in 2021”.

“There will be a shortfall of 16,000 full-time equivalent pharmacists by 2036-37 despite NHS England’s ambition to increase the number of full-time equivalent pharmacists to at least 34,000,” it said.

The CCA set out a series of recommendations it insisted will help the Government “realise the ambitions” of its workforce plan which is expected to be published in the summer “and meet future demands on community pharmacy”.

These included halting the recruitment of pharmacists into GP surgeries and primary pare networks “immediately” and commissioning services from pharmacies near to patients’ homes instead of “simply moving pharmacists from one setting to another”.

Number of pharmacists is at its lowest level in over eight years

“(The NHS must) ensure the upcoming workforce plan is accompanied by a clear plan for implementation and ongoing dialogue with the sector,” the CCA said, urging Labour work with higher education bodies and employers to increase the number of new pharmacists.

CCA chief executive Malcolm Harrison said the Government’s ambition to shift more care into communities and fulfil its prevention agenda largely hinged on the NHS prioritising “an enhanced community pharmacy workforce”.

“The community pharmacy workforce is shrinking. Vacancy rates have risen, and the number of pharmacists is at its lowest level in over eight years,” he warned.

“Unless action is taken, the NHS will be short of 16,000 pharmacists in just over a decade.”

Criticising the original NHS workforce plan, which was published in June 2023 and set out how 100,000 vacancies in general practice, nursing and other health sectors would be filled when the Conservatives were in power, Harrison said: “The announcement of a new NHS workforce plan for 2025 gives us little hope, when there has been virtually no progress since the last one.”

He added: “Lurching from plan to plan without implementation, alongside continued underfunding, is doing harm to pharmacies who are the healthcare lifeblood of local communities.”