Until I’d woken up in the middle of an orchard at 2am with a child so covered in bites it was like trying to share a tent with a bag of feral cats, I hadn’t quite realised the extent of the pharmacy shortage in the UK.
For years, the last government advised people who were struggling to get a GP appointment to simply turn up at their local pharmacy instead. After all, pharmacists can often prescribe things quicker than a doctor, have a better sense of their stock, and you can pick up a box of condoms and some of those petrol-tasting throat lozenges at the same time. If your case isn’t urgent, we were told, don’t bother the poor doctors with your flaking feet or sore throat, just take a little trip down the high street and get your medical advice from someone behind a counter full of hairbands and lip balms. This scheme even had a natty little name: Pharmacy First.
Except, nearly 1,000 pharmacies have closed since 2017, particularly in poor and rural areas. In May, the National Pharmacy Association warned that nearly 50% more pharmacies had closed in England in the first four months of 2024 than in the same period in 2023, due, in part, to a real terms funding cut of as much as 40%.
So when I typed “pharmacy” into Google maps on Saturday night, the closest result was 10 miles away and, of course, it was closed at the weekends. Even with the privilege of living in the middle of Oxford, when I had pneumonia last year I had to go to three pharmacies in a week, collecting a few days’ worth of antibiotics at a time to try to cover my whole course.
This summer, I imagine thousands of us have urgently needed antihistamines, sun cream, Dioralyte, folic acid, plasters, Deep Heat and Sudocrem (hopefully not all at once – unless you’re one of those people who really goes to town at festivals) only to discover that the local pharmacy has either closed or dramatically reduced its opening hours. Why? It’s a story as old as time, a song as old as rhyme: rising costs and devastating funding cuts.
• Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood
