A new research has revealed that pharmacies across the United Kingdom are unable to provide critical NHS and public health services due to the overwhelming financial and operational pressures that they are facing. A poll of pharmacy owners represented more than 2,100 pharmacies and it found out that over 96% of the respondents have said that they had stopped providing locally commissioned services over the past year. These include emergency contraception and products that help quit smoking.

Janet Morrison, chief executive of Community Pharmacy England, while speaking to media said, "Across England patients and local communities are paying the price of our collapsing community pharmacy network, as thousands of pharmacies have been left with no choice but to reduce the services that they can offer. These are not decisions that any pharmacy wants to make, but with a 30% real-terms funding reduction and spiraling costs, pharmacy owners are having to make impossible decisions to try to keep their doors open."

The research comes after almost 1,000 pharmacies in England have closed since 2017. As a part of the research, four in five, which accounts for 81% of pharmacy owners said that they have had to stop offering extended opening hours.

The revelation comes at a time when UK is going through a healthcare crisis. Earlier, an investigation revealed that about 19,000 NHS patients were left waiting in the accident and emergency (A&E) department for three days over a period of 12-months. From April 2023 to March 2024, nearly 400,000 people were left waiting for over 24 hours across the A&E departments. This is a 5% rise from the previous year's figures.

The investigation exposed "suffering and indignity faced by patients on a daily basis." It came after an undercover reporter secretly filmed himself working as a trainee healthcare assistant inside the emergency department of the Royal Shrewsbury hospital for two months. The footage shows one patient waiting for about 30 hours in the seating area. A suspected stroke sufferer was also present for a period of 24 hours.

Earlier, there were also reports of NHS planning to recruit up to 2,000 doctors from India on a fast-track basis in a bid to address the country's shortage of medical practitioners. According to a report by Business Standard, the NHS will be conducting postgraduate training for the first batch of doctors who will be assigned to hospitals in Britain after 6 to 12 months of training. These doctors will be excused from the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board examination upon completion of the programe.

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