Chemists face cuts to opening hours

CUTS to high street chemists will see their opening hours slashed in the most deprived areas, industry experts have warned, write Caroline Wheeler and Camilla Tominey.

It comes as the changes are set to be challenged in the High Court.

Last week the National Pharmacy Association presented its case against the Government’s £321million pharmacy funding cut to the court, ahead of a hearing later this month.

The basis of the legal challenge is that the Government failed to consider properly the impact its cuts will have in deprived areas and on the elderly, the disabled and people from black and minority ethnic communities.

The hearing comes as a survey of high street chemists hit by the cuts found that 65 per cent will be forced to reduce opening hours or services to some degree by the summer.

The research carried out by the NPA found that nearly half of those surveyed have begun to reduce staffing levels while nearly a third are in the process of restricting currently “free” services such as home deliveries of medicines.

Commenting on the court case, NPA chairman Ian Strachan said: “We are fighting this case to protect patients and communities in deprived areas and to smoke out the flawed thinking behind the Government cuts to pharmacy funding.

“Had the Department of Health properly considered the impact of its cuts, it would have realised that the cuts will have a disproportionate effect on people with legally protected characteristics and those who live in the most deprived areas of England, where there is already a lack of NHS healthcare provision.” The pharmacies affected are disproportionately located in deprived areas, which goes against the “inverse care law” under which people with the highest needs are provided with the best access to advice and treatment. This will be the first court case to consider the duty to reduce inequalities and will therefore set a precedent for how the Government applies this duty across other areas of healthcare in the future. The case will be heard week commencing March 20, alongside a case being brought by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee. If either the NPA or PSNC legal arguments are successful it is open to the judge to quash last year’s pharmacy funding decision.