How many UK pharmacies are closing, and where?

How many pharmacies have closed in England?

England had 10,526 pharmacies in February 2026, down from 11,609 in February 2016. That is 1,083 fewer, a 9% fall in ten years. The figures come from NHS England's edispensary data, set out in the House of Commons Library briefing Community pharmacy in England, published on 2 March 2026. The same briefing puts it plainly: over 1,000 pharmacies closed in England over the decade.

The year-by-year series below is from the Commons Library briefing. Each figure is the count in February of that year.

Two things stand out. The network grew in 2017 and only began to shrink from 2018, after the 2016 funding cuts. And 40% of the decade's loss came in one year: 435 pharmacies went between February 2023 and February 2024, when LloydsPharmacy and Boots shut hundreds of branches. The year to February 2026 lost 50, the smallest annual fall since 2018.

NHSBSA counts differently. Its monthly pharmacy openings and closures dataset records the pharmacies on NHS England's pharmaceutical lists on the last day of each month, split by the size of the owning group. On that count England had 9,944 community pharmacies at the end of March 2026. The two series use different definitions, so do not subtract one from the other. They agree on direction. The NPA said in February 2026 that the network was at its smallest since 2006.

The statistics in this article are for England, because that is where the data is published. For Wales, the NHSBSA and IQVIA figures reported in January 2026 show 90 closures in 2025.

Why do the closure figures disagree?

Because some counts are gross and some are net. NHSBSA and IQVIA figures reported by The Pharmacist on 14 January 2026 show 561 pharmacies closed in England in 2025. Over the year to February 2026, NHS England's series fell by 50. Both are right.

NHSBSA's own dataset notes explain the gap. A pharmacy that changes ownership is recorded as a closure, with a new pharmacy opening the next day. A sale therefore shows up as a closure even though the shop never shut. Backdated amendments also move the monthly totals. Gross closure counts capture churn; net counts capture the size of the network.

Other counts sit in between. The NPA counted more than one permanent closure a week in 2025, and eight in January 2026 alone. A report by Edge Health, sponsored by Sandoz and reported on 28 April 2026, put net closures in England since 2021 at 865, an 8% reduction.

Which figure should you use? For the state of the network, use net. For what is happening in your own area, gross matters too. Each gross closure is an NHS contract that has either disappeared or changed hands, and both change local competition.

Which areas have lost the most pharmacies?

Deprived urban areas in the North and Midlands. The NPA analysed NHSBSA data in October 2025, comparing 2025/26 with 2022/23. Liverpool lost 3.1 pharmacies per 100,000 people, the highest rate in England, and the NPA called it the country's capital for pharmacy closures. York was second. Blackpool, Wakefield, Coventry and Kingston upon Hull were all in the top ten. Around nine in ten council areas had at least one permanent closure over the three years. The 50 areas with the most closures had above-average deprivation.

The table brings together three sets of local findings. They are the NPA analysis, the Local Government Association's January 2025 analysis of NHSBSA data, and a Commons Library constituency count for the Liberal Democrats using January 2025 data.

The LGA analysis found 222 permanent closures in 2024, the second-highest annual figure on record after 2023. Nearly nine in ten council areas had at least one permanent closure across 2023 and 2024.

Rural counties feel closures differently, because the next pharmacy may be miles away. In Devon, a local GP surgery surveyed 3,000 people around Tiverton. Pharmacy Business reported the results on 11 April 2026. Some 30% could not get to a pharmacy at all, and 35% could not buy basic over-the-counter medicines locally. About 300 people reported potential harm from missed medication. Devon County Council was due to discuss it at its May meeting.

Are chains or independents closing more?

The big chains drove the sharpest fall, and the pressure has since moved to smaller owners. The Commons Library briefing records LloydsPharmacy closing its 237 branches in Sainsbury's stores by June 2023, and Boots announcing 300 closures across the UK over a year in 2023. Tesco closed ten in-store pharmacies and Morrisons four in 2025. That is most of the story behind the 435 pharmacies lost in the year to February 2024.

Then came Jhoots. The chain ran more than 100 pharmacies and had bought about 60 branches from LloydsPharmacy in 2023. Its companies entered administration at the end of 2025. The administrators' report, filed in January 2026, blamed higher staff costs and rents, stagnant NHS pricing and rising drug costs. It said the 2023 purchases were made without the structures needed to run them. Allied Pharmacies took over the branches. We look at what the chains' retreat means in our analysis of the multiples' sell-offs.

NHSBSA's March 2026 snapshot shows how the network now divides. The figures are from its pharmacy openings and closures dataset.

Small groups now make up just over half the network. That is where the NPA's survey work points for the next closures. It found 65% of pharmacies operated at a loss in 2025, and 45% of owners had used personal savings or remortgaged their homes. More than 3,000 owners signed its open letter to the Health Secretary, published on 18 February 2026, warning of closures and service cuts. Two-thirds of pharmacies, the letter said, were at real risk of imminent closure.

Why are pharmacies closing?

Funding fell in real terms for most of a decade while costs rose. A DHSC written answer on 24 February 2026 set out contract funding since 2015/16 in cash and in 2025/26 prices. Cash funding stayed flat at £2,592m from 2018/19 to 2023/24. In 2025/26 prices it fell from £3,864m in 2015/16 to £2,776m in 2023/24. The 2025/26 settlement, agreed in March 2025, lifted it to £3,073m. That is still about £790m below the 2015/16 value. The Pharmaceutical Journal called it a 20% fall over the decade.

The costs side is documented too. NHS England commissioned an independent economic analysis from Frontier Economics and IQVIA, published on 9 October 2024. It found 47% of pharmacy branches were not profitable at EBITDA level in their last accounting year. It put the full economic cost of running a pharmacy in 2023/24 at £409,000 to £573,000, or £5,063m across the sector. Nearly every pharmacy receives less than that. It also noted a rising number of pharmacies defaulting on direct debits for stock.

Costs stepped up again in April 2026. NPA chair Olivier Picard warned in February of a "tsunami of new costs" arriving in April, including business rate rises and minimum wage increases. Retail business rates relief has been cut back in stages, as our business rates guide explains. Medicines add a second squeeze. When purchase prices run ahead of Drug Tariff reimbursement, pharmacies dispense at a loss until a concession is granted; see how price concessions work.

New services have not filled the gap. The Edge Health report found Pharmacy First increased workload without improving average earnings per pharmacy. Its monthly fixed payment carries a consultation threshold, so many pharmacies receive only the per-consultation fee.

How big a problem are temporary closures?

Bigger than permanent closures, measured in lost hours. Healthwatch sent freedom of information requests to integrated care boards in 2024. Its findings, summarised in the Commons Library briefing, show 13,863 temporary closures across 41 ICBs in 2023. They cost 46,823 hours of opening, at an average of three hours and 40 minutes each. Staff shortages, and above all trouble finding a locum, were the main reason.

Temporary closures hit patients in the same way as permanent ones, without showing up in any network count. The Devon survey above described closures happening "temporarily due to staff shortage". For a pharmacy owner, an unplanned closure is also a breach of the terms of service unless NHS England has agreed a temporary change to hours.

What happens to patients when a pharmacy closes?

Their prescriptions move to the nearest pharmacies still open, and a minority stop using a pharmacy at all. The rules give some notice. Regulation 67 of the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 sets the notice period. An owner must tell NHS England at least three months before a voluntary closure. For premises with a 100-hour condition it is six months. NHS England may agree a shorter period. A pharmacy that has provided no services for six months must be removed from the list under regulation 74.

Patients with an electronic prescription nomination at the closing branch need to nominate another pharmacy, which the new pharmacy or the GP practice can do for them. In practice the branches nearest the closure absorb the volume, along with the staffing pressure that comes with it. The Devon survey recorded a 10% rise in GP appointments after local closures.

There is no automatic replacement. Health and wellbeing boards publish pharmaceutical needs assessments, and a closure that leaves a gap can allow a new application to succeed. But the Pharmacy Access Scheme is the only money aimed at keeping isolated pharmacies open. The scheme is capped at £20m and covers pharmacies more than a mile from the next nearest, or 0.8 miles in the most deprived fifth of areas. Community Pharmacy England lists 1,445 eligible pharmacies and a maximum payment of £17,500 a year. See our guide to the Pharmacy Access Scheme.

What does it mean for pharmacies still trading?

Fewer competitors, more volume and an open acquisition market, set against the same cost pressures that closed the neighbour. Every net closure redistributes prescriptions to the pharmacies left standing. Every gross closure that is really a sale puts a contract on the market. Former chain branches and distressed independents are both changing hands, and prices reflect the risk.

The policy backdrop is unsettled. At the date of writing the 2026/27 contract settlement had not been announced. The March 2025 settlement had pledged only that talks would start after the 2025 Spending Review. Its chief executive Janet Morrison said on 28 April 2026 that community pharmacy is "on a knife-edge" and needs investment and a roadmap. Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists' Association, said in February that the funding model "no longer reflects the true cost of delivering NHS pharmaceutical care".

Consolidation is the other half of the story. Buyers with scale are picking up former chain branches and distressed independents. Who is buying UK pharmacies, and why sets out the acquirers and their logic.

Key takeaways

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