By Neil Trainis

The number of community pharmacies in England has fallen to its lowest level since 2015-16, according to the latest official NHS figures published today.

In its report on general pharmaceutical services in the country between 2015 and 2023, the NHS Business Services Authority said there were 11,414 active community pharmacies in 2022-23, 108 fewer than in 2021-22 and the fewest since 2015-16 when there were 11,949 pharmacies.

In 2022-23, 297 new pharmacies opened but 388 closed. The number of appliance contractors also fell to its lowest level since 2015-16 when there were 116. In 2022-23, there were 111 appliance contractors.

There was a rise in the number of prescription items dispensed by pharmacies between 2021-22 and 2022-23, going from 1.04 billion to 1.08 billion items, a 3.44 per cent increase. The 2022-23 figure is an 8.41 per cent increase on the 995 million items dispensed in 2015-16.

The number of items dispensed by appliance contractors also increased by 2.01 per cent in between 2022-23 and the year before, while their number of dispensed items between 2015-16 and 2022-23 rose from 7.91 million to 11.1 million.

The average number of items dispensed in each community pharmacy increased by 4.42 per cent from 90,500 in 2021-22 to 94,500 in 2022-23 and the latest figure was a 13.5 per cent rise on the average of 83,300 in 2015-16.

The average annual items dispensed by appliance contractors has risen every year since 2015-16, going from 68,200 in 2015-16 to 94,500 in 2022-23. The report said the number of items dispensed by appliance contractors has surpassed the number for pharmacies in the last three years.

Over one billion prescription items were dispensed via the electronic prescription service in 2022-23, equating to 95.6 per cent of all items dispensed. It was also a significant increase on the 355 million items dispensed via EPS – 35.4 per cent of all items – in 2015-16.

In 2022-23, 99.7 per cent of all contractors dispensed at least one prescription item via EPS compared with 97.5 per cent in 2015-16.

The report also said the costs reimbursed to contractors rose for the fourth year in a row, reaching £9.72 billion 2022-23 when the value of single activity fees paid to contractors was nearly £1.4 billion compared with £1.36 billion in 2021-22.

The report analysed services in community pharmacy too. Pharmacies claimed for more than 2.8 million new medicine service consultations in 2022-23 compared with 2.1 million in 2021-22. The cost of the NMS hit £76.3 million in 2022-23, a 42 per cent increase on the £53.9 million in 2021-22.

The cost of the community pharmacist consultation service provided by pharmacies in 2022-23 was £17.8 million, an 81 per cent increase on £9.8 million the year before.

The cost of drugs used for the CPCS in 2022-23 was £3.1 million, a 35 per cent increase on £2.3 million in 2021-22.