Pharmacy leaders have joined forces in writing to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to ask him to address pharmacy’s funding crisis.

With investment, community pharmacy could deliver cost-effective solutions for patients and the NHS, but funding cuts have put the sector at risk, the letter says.

‘A good starting point would be a fully funded ‘Pharmacy First’ service’, the letter reads, saying that the service would create ‘a vital front door to the NHS for patients’ and alleviate pressure on GPs and A&E departments.

In November, Steve Barclay said that he was ‘looking at how we can progress Pharmacy First’, but PSNC chief executive Janet Morrison said that PSNC would not agree to the service unless it was fully funded.

Pharmacies could also be offering a wider range of services to support medicine optimisation, long term conditions, prevention and health inequalities, the letter adds.

However, it warns that without urgent action, permanent pharmacy closures are likely and medicines supply are at risk.

Once these closures start, they will be hard to stop, as the sector is now so fragile other pharmacies would struggle to pick up the slack, the pharmacy leaders said.

The letter is signed by leaders from the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC), the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIM), the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA), the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), Boots UK, LloydsPharmacy, Well and Phoenix UK.

Dr Leyla Hannbeck, the chief executive of AIM, said that the pharmacy contractors were making losses and ‘simply cannot continue like this’. ‘Pharmacies are struggling to keep their heads above the water as they are simply struggling to pay their bills,’ she said.

Malcolm Harrison, the chief executive of the CCA said that community pharmacy ‘has the potential to reduce GP waiting times and hospital re-admissions’ but that it was up to the Secretary of State to ‘unlock the true potential of community pharmacies’.

Janet Morrison, PSNC chief executive, said that the pressures on community pharmacy ‘could soon have very serious consequences for patients’. ‘We believe that what is right for pharmacies is right for patients and right for the wider NHS,’ she added.

Andrew Lane, NPA chair, said that he was delighted that bodies across the sector had come together. ‘We are showing the Health Secretary that we are united in our determination to take the right route – one that unlocks the full potential of community pharmacy and helps support the NHS more widely,’ he said.