Request

I am looking for the total number of pharmacy closures in the UK for this period.

As per the NHSBSA way of counting pharmacies that have ceased registered services.

I understand this also includes transfers from one pharmacy to another.

Also if you have the number of pharmacies opened in this period that would also be amazing.

Can you confirm is this UK wales, Scotland, Ireland england or just england or england scotland NIreland etc

I do not need a breakdown by area just total numbers please

Response

Under Section 21 of the FOIA we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.

The information you requested is available on the NHSBSA website

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/pharmacy-openings-and-closures.

Please see the following link to view the section 21 in full –

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/21

Advice and Assistance

This data goes back to January 2021.

The pharmacy opening and closures data set shows the numbers of pharmacies in England that are included on a Pharmaceutical List held by NHS England on the last calendar day of each month.

Pharmacies which have changed ownership will be counted as a closure with a new pharmacy opening on the next day, however this doesn’t affect the net change figures. ‘Opened’ means pharmacies that have joined a Pharmaceutical List and started providing NHS services between the first and last calendar day of the month; and ‘closed’ means pharmacies that have been removed from a list and have ceased providing NHS services between first and last calendar day of the month.

We do not hold data for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or Ireland.

Publishing this response

Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02799

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.