In the Autumn Budget this week, chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to providing an additional £22.6bn to the ‘day-to-day health budget’ – including £100m to use on upgrades to 200 general practice estates in England.

The budget also outlined minimum wage increases which may have a knock-on impact across the board, but are currently unfunded in both general practice and community pharmacy.

A third of practice pharmacists have no dedicated workspace

The £100m ‘earmarked’ by the government for to upgrading 200 GP practice buildings may be welcome news to the third of primary care network (PCN) pharmacists who do not have a dedicated workspace.

Pharmacists working in PCNs and general practices have previously said that a lack of suitable workspace hinders their ability to do clinical work.

In our most recent survey on the topic earlier this year, 29% of Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) pharmacist respondents said they did not have a dedicated workspace for their PCN work.

This was an improvement on the result of a similar survey conducted in 2023, where 72.8% practice staff respondents said they did not have the space to house their ARRS staff.

A 2023 Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) survey also raised concerns about inappropriate workspaces, with practice pharmacists raising concerns that they were expected to conduct medication reviews on the telephone in open plan offices or other ‘inappropriate settings’.

Salaries could rise but employers will struggle to foot the cost

This week's budget also contained uplifts to the national living wage and employer national insurance contributions, which may have a knock-on benefit for staff on all salary levels.

But both GP and pharmacy employers have warned employment cost increases would be unaffordable under current funding.

The Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants board member Andy Pow told our sister title Pulse yesterday that the impact of the rise in National Insurance (NI) costs for employers ‘will be significant’, adding that ‘GP practices and other primary care providers are not eligible to claim’ the Employment Allowance that protects certain companies from having to pay employers' NI.

And he said that increases to the national living wage ‘could mean another year of above inflation cost increases for practices', as salaries across the board could rise due to the need to maintain pay differentials between staff.

Will the government fund rising employment costs for GPs and pharmacies?

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed to Pulse that further detail on National Insurance contributions for GPs will be confirmed in due course, and that it will work closely with the Treasury to ensure appropriate compensation for the public sector.

And chair of the British Medical Association (BMA's) GP committee Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said on X last night that health ministers were 'locked in discussion with the Treasury' as the BMA called for 'full recompense' for the rising employment costs for GP practices.

Paul Rees, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), told The Pharmacist on Wednesday that pharmacies would be 'deeply worried by looming increases' in employment costs 'which would impose huge additional costs on their NHS-funded services if the government does not pick up the bill'.

And Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA), said it was 'vital' that some of the extra NHS money 'delivers the much-needed funding boost to the current pharmacy contract negotiations'.

'If it does not, the tsunami of overhead increases in the national minimum wage, national insurance and other costs will surely push even more community pharmacies over the edge and undermine the government’s claim to believe in investing in primary care as a means to transform healthcare,' she said.

She noted that independent community pharmacies are '95% dependent on NHS funding, so cannot make up revenue or profit from general consumer sales as the big retail chains can'.