Save Our Pharmacies – Pressure mounts as campaign calls for fair funding

A MELKSHAM pharmacy has joined the Save our Pharmacies Campaign to lobby for better funding following a surge in pharmacy closures and funding cuts across the country. And they are urging local people to sign a petition for fair funding for local pharmacies.

Gompels pharmacy on the High Street, has been serving and dispensing medications to Melksham and the surrounding area for 54 years.

Like many pharmacies across the country, services offered at Gompels have evolved over the years to meet the community need and alleviate pressure in the NHS. As well as providing an extensive range of support for residents’ health and wellbeing, Gompels also work closely with doctors’ surgeries and other pharmacies in the area.

A lack of funding for these additional services however, poses a threat to the future of the community pharmacy industry and for the first time ever, national pharmacy bodies have joined forces to lobby for fair NHS funding for all pharmacies in England.

Owner of Gompels pharmacy, Patrick Gompels said, “Our workload has increased because we are now offering more services to the community, but those services are not being adequately funded.

“On top of this, we are seeing massive price volatility when buying drugs. We often dispense medication at a loss, just to make sure our patients do not go without. Around 90% of a pharmacy’s income comes from reimbursement for dispensing medication; this funding has been cut by more than 30% and the additional services pharmacies now provide are insufficiently funded. Some are not funded at all!

“The role of the pharmacy in the community has massively changed. The pharmacy is supporting the community with the introduction of new services that have a really positive impact on people’s lives and on the NHS. By the end of last year in Melksham, we had saved over 1,000 GP appointments by working closely with the local surgeries and supporting patients from the pharmacy. So far in January, February and March, we are saving nearly 200 appointments each month.”

Calling for the community to sign the Save our Pharmacies petition, Patrick said, “I have signed this petition and I am encouraging everyone out in the shop and the town to sign it, to raise more awareness of this, in order to save community pharmacy services. We want to keep doing more; we want to help, but these services need to be adequately funded to ensure we can continue doing so.”

In January this year, Lloyds Pharmacy announced it would be closing all of its 237 outlets in Sainsbury’s supermarkets throughout the year, due to fears of insufficient government funding for the industry. This includes the Lloyds Pharmacy within the Melksham Sainsbury’s store, which is due to shut at the end of May this year.

For more information about the Save our Pharmacies petition visit the website, https://saveourpharmacies.co.uk/about/