Local Pharmaceutical Committee

Pharmacy in the United Kingdom has been an integral part of the National Health Service since it was established in 1948. Unlike the rest of the NHS pharmacies are largely privately provided apart from those in hospitals, and even these are now often privately run.

The Pharmacy Act 1868 limited the sale of poisons and dangerous drugs to qualified pharmacists and druggists.

The advent of the NHS had an immediate beneficial effect on the pharmaceutical industry. In 1960 there were proposals that the private patients of general practitioners should be enabled to receive their drugs free on the health service, but they were not implemented.

The supply of drugs in the hospital service represented about one-tenth by value of the supply through the retail pharmaceutical service in 1965.

There was a reduction of more than a quarter in the number of pharmacies in the community between 1963 and 1979. According to the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee at that time over 4,000 pharmacies in England and Wales dispensing less than 24,000 prescriptions per annum were losing money on NHS services.

NHS pharmacies are governed and paid for their NHS work under a standard contract, which was modified in 2005. This modification enabled pharmacy contractors to be paid for Medicines Use Reviews conducted by pharmacists for people with multiple long term prescriptions. There are also New Medicine Services, which are intended for patients who have started on long term medication, such as asthma treatment.

In 2016 the government announced that the budget for pharmacy would be reduced by £170 million nationally from 2017 (£113 million in England) - its “share” of the £22 billion in savings required across the NHS. Under the new contract there will be a payment of £1.33 per prescribed item dispensed, but the flat rate establishment payment (around £25,000 per pharmacy) set up in 2005 will be reduced by 40% and is to be abolished. There will be an access scheme with monthly payments for the 1340 pharmacies more than a mile away from the next pharmacy. There will be additional quality incentives for:

The NHS in Wales has a separate pharmacy contract. In April 2017 Vaughan Gething announced that there were "no proposals to reduce investment in community pharmacy here in Wales" as was happening in England. By 2020 Welsh pharmacists will have access to patients’ summary care records in order to help deliver the Welsh common ailment service.

In rural areas GPs are permitted to dispense medication if there is not a pharmacy within a mile of the surgery. There are 1,290 dispensing practices across the UK serving 8.8 million patients in 2015. Many are members of the Dispensing Doctors' Association.

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