“With every day that passes more community pharmacies are falling into debt and administration,” Community Pharmacy England has told health ministers as the negotiator expressed “severe frustration and intense anger” over delayed funding talks.

CPE chief executive Janet Morrison recently wrote to health ministers to highlight the dangers posed by ongoing delays to starting talks for the 2024-25 financial year. 

In a statement to contractors, she said: “We are now eight months into the 2024/25 financial year with no financial settlement in sight: this is disastrous from a business planning perspective, falls short of proper economic regulation, and the continuation of current underfunding is proving catastrophic for community pharmacies.

“I have written to Ministers once again to warn them that with every day that passes, more community pharmacies are falling into debt and administration.

“Many community pharmacy owners are now considering whether to close, sell or make further cuts to staff and patient services before they collapse.”

In a video message to contractors, she explained she had been told by policymakers that talks have “got stuck in the negotiations between the Department of Health finance team and the NHS England finance team” as they look at how to allocate the £22bn in new NHS funding announced in the budget. 

This includes dealing with “additional costs created by the budget statement” such as rises to employers’ national insurance contributions and the national living wage. 

But she said the pharmacy sector needs an “urgent release of money” in the interim to fend off consequences such as more closures. 

Ms Morrison said she had told pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock on budget day that “one of the big disappointments was what the budget didn’t say in terms of primary care and of course community pharmacy”.