'Budget dealt our funding-crisis pharmacies an extra £200m hammer blow

THE Budget has delivered a devastating "hammer blow to pharmacies across the country" that were already battling a funding crisis, ministers have been warned.

- By Hanna Geissler

Increases to employer national insurance contributions and national living wage are expected to drain community chemists of around £200million a year.

The National Pharmacy Association says around seven pharmacies have been shutting for good every week and the Budget is likely to accelerate that trend.

At Stevens Pharmacy in Eltham, South East London, owner Patricia Tigenoah-Ojo, 54, fears patients will suffer. She said: "This is going to be an extra cost on small businesses like my own and community pharmacies at large, where we've already endured nearly 10 years of cutbacks.

"We're going to have to find ways to accommodate that and survive this.

That may well mean reducing the hours that we operate.