A BARNSLEY MP has branded ministers ‘clueless’ over cuts to community pharmacies, as the government admits it cannot say how many chemists will close and where the closures will be.
Michael Dugher, MP for Barnsley East, warned government plans to cut £170m from the community pharmacy budget are unravelling.
The government claims the cut is designed to reduce ‘clustering’ of community pharmacies, where local chemists trade within walking distance of each other.
But in response to a written Parliamentary question tabled by Mr Dugher, the government was forced to admit it was ‘not able to assess’ which pharmacies may close, or what the effect on high street vacancy rates might be, because it does not know the financial viability of individual businesses, or the extent to which they derive income from services commissioned locally by the NHS or local authorities or have non-NHS related income’.
Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle
