The organisation that negotiates on behalf of Scotland's community pharmacy operators says the sector is now in serious financial trouble and a significant improvement in funding from the Scottish government will be needed to avoid services having to reduce their hours or close altogether.

Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) says it is particularly worried for the future of the internationally recognised Pharmacy First free consultations service, saying it may now have to be taken out of the national community pharmacy contract.

In a statement, CPS says that there has been "no sign of ministers making a serious offer" in negotiations and, with pharmacy owners increasingly needing to borrow to keep their doors open, the discussions will soon need to move to listing the services that pharmacies can no longer afford to provide.

CPS says it is now "sounding the alarm", adding that, while like many other businesses its members have been dealing with escalating costs, pharmacies cannot pass these onto customers as most of their income comes from the NHS.

Late last month, CPS revealed that it had rejected the 2023/24 financial package put forward by Scottish government.

A few days later, ministers announced that they would be making an interim cash injection of £20m to ease pressures related to medicine price increases.

CPS welcomed that additional funding but said it wasn't sufficient to cover the increased cost of the most common medicines, and pointed out that it represented just 1.74% of the annual medicine spend in Scotland.

At the beginning of this week, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association in Scotland, whose membership is made up of frontline pharmacists, issued an appeal to be represented at the negotiating table alongside CPS and government, suggesting their members could bring a fresh perspective to the discussions.

In its latest statement, CPS says its members will fight to retain services like Pharmacy First in the contract because it is so important to providing access to healthcare in communities and reducing the pressures on GP and emergency departments. But it warned only an improved offer will secure the “bright future we had planned for Pharmacy First".

A Scottish Government spokesperson told healthandcare.scot:

“An improved offer on the financial settlement 2023-24 was made last week to Community Pharmacy Scotland, and the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health had a constructive meeting with CPS representatives last week.

“Discussions are ongoing with Community Pharmacy Scotland and we hope to reach an agreed position on the financial settlement for 2023-24 that continues to support community pharmacy as key part of the NHS in Scotland.”

The Scottish Government says it has invested over £25 million in additional remuneration funding over the last 5 years and last month increased the value of the Scottish Drug Tariff by £20 million to address the increase in the costs of medicine.

Read more: A pharmacist on the frontline; Joint pharmacy project cuts adverse events; Pharmacy’s crucial role in fair access to health;

Sign up to our bulletin for key health & social care updates straight to your inbox and you can follow healthandcare.scot on Google News.