National Pharmacy Association (NPA) members across the UK have participated in a second day of action today by wearing black, displaying posters and raising awareness of the impact of funding cuts on the sector.

It comes as the NPA has announced plans to escalate its action and ballot its members on 'working to rule'.

Contractor and NPA board member Ashley Cohen told The Pharmacist that he hoped the 'constant media' coverage of the day on multiple national and local channels could 'only help in educating patients about the critical and acute situation that we're in'.

He said that his staff were supporting the NPA's second day of protest today in 'the most professional way that we can', including by displaying posters, wearing black, and 'making sure that every patient is aware of the dire straits that we're in'.

'They may not necessarily understand complexities around dispensing at a loss and a five year contract at 0%, but they've seen pharmacies close up the road. They don't want pharmacy deserts, they don't want to have to travel miles and miles to get their medicines, so they are supportive,' he said.

And he said he was a 'massive supporter' of the NPA's plans to ballot its members on 'working to rule'.

'I think it's really important that we express in as loud as possible terms to the government that enough is enough,' Mr Cohen said.

He suggested that most pharmacies were already taking many of the actions described in the ballot, such as reducing core hours and reducing services that aren't funded.

'It's a shame as a professional that we have to have to do it, but there's only so much that we can take,' he added.

And while he said that as a pharmacist professional he was 'always worried' about any patient safety impact, 'we have to work and operate in an environment that's not only safe for our patients, but safe for our staff'.

'We can't keep doing more work, squeezed in the same number of hours,' he said.

'So in the same way that our other colleagues are working to rule a little bit, we've got to stop doing things that aren't funded, and we have to re-educate patients that this is the new way of working,' he said.

Some general practices began 'working to rule' on 1 August, under action organised by the British Medical Association (BMA).

Mr Cohen said he hoped the ballot would become 'irrelevant' if the government restored the sector's funding.

'That will stop the closures and allow us to operate and be part of the solution moving forward,' he said.

Other pharmacies have chosen to highlight pharmacy closures by dimming the lights in their pharmacy 'to show what it would look like' if the pharmacy closed.

And others symbolically sounded an alarm.

Sector leaders from Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the Company Chemists' Association (CCA), Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland (CPNI) and the NPA also highlighted patient concern by presenting their 'Save our pharmacies' petition, which now has more than 350,000 signatures, to parliament today.

NPA chief executive, Paul Rees, said that the second day of action was hoped to 'build on the momentum of the first, to make sure politicians and senior NHS officials are in no doubt about the precarious state of the UK’s precious community pharmacy network'.

'What we need is for government to urgently deliver a fair deal for the community pharmacy sector – and reverse the years of declining real terms funding.

'Wes Streeting took personal notice of our first day of action so this action backs up our representation in Westminster and Whitehall,' he said.