Misinterpreting active community pharmacies
We have been made aware that our headline figure for active community pharmacies can be misinterpreted. We would like to draw your attention to some important information for this figure.
When a pharmacy contract changes providers it can remain in the same premises but may be given a new organisation code. The measure of active community pharmacies uses the pharmacy organisation code to determine active pharmacies. In 2023/24 an increased number of pharmacy contracts changed providers compared to previous years. This may inflate the number of active pharmacies in the year compared to the number of pharmacy premises.
For the total number of pharmacies that are open at the end of each month, you can visit our Open Data Portal and view the monthly Pharmacy Openings and Closures data.
Published 10 October 2024.
Publication
General Pharmaceutical Services - England 2015/16 to 2023/24 statistical summary narrative (HTML)
Summary
Community pharmacies and appliance contractors are responsible for dispensing medications, appliances, and medical devices to NHS patients. They are not a direct part of the NHS but provide essential services on behalf of the NHS to the general public.
This publication aims to describe the essential and advanced services that community pharmacies and appliance contractors provide, along with some of their associated costs.
The General Pharmaceutical Services (GPhS) publication is an accredited official statistic release. Accredited official statistics status means that GPhS meets the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality, public value, and complies with all aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
The designation of this publication as an accredited official statistic was confirmed in December 2021 following an independent review by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
You can read more about this confirmation and the independent review of these statistics on the OSR website.
Key findings
In England in 2023/24 for community pharmacies and appliance contractors:
- There were 12,009 active community pharmacies and 112 active appliance contractors.
- 1.1 billion prescription items were dispensed by community pharmacies - this was a 3% increase from 2022/23.
- 12 million prescription items were dispensed by appliance contractors - this was a 5% increase from 2022/23.
- 1.08 billion prescription items were dispensed via the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) - this was 96% of all items dispensed, and a small percentage increase from 2022/23.
- The cost of drugs and appliances reimbursed totalled £10 billion - this was a 5% increase from 2022/23.
Resource list
Supporting summary tables (Excel: 112KB)
Background information and methodology document (HTML)
Pre-release access list (HTML)
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Contact list
If you have any questions, comments, or would like more information you can email statistics@nhsbsa.nhs.uk.
Responsible statistician: Kirsty Gray