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PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Pharmacy (5 December 2023)

Question Asked

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of community pharmacists have worked in England for each of the last 10 years.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

Answer

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has a duty to maintain a register of all pharmacists and pharmacy technicians registered to practice in Great Britain. The register does not contain data on what pharmacy sector registrants are employed in and numbers by country are according to their registered home address. This does not necessarily mean that registrants are working in those countries or that they are in employment.

NHS England and formerly Health Education England conduct a community pharmacy workforce survey. The following table shows the number of pharmacists working in community pharmacy in England and its proportion of the GPhC register as of 31 October in each year reported:

Number of pharmacists working in community pharmacy

Proportion of GPhC register as of 31 October

2022

27,711

52%

2021

27,406

54%

2017

23,284

50%

Notes:

  1. Data only exists for 2017, 2021 and 2022 as these were the only years of survey data collection.
  2. The data provided is the headcount of pharmacists working in community pharmacy at the time of the survey and excludes trainees.
  3. Proportion data is indicative as the survey data and GPhC register data are not directly comparable.


Answered by:
Andrea Leadsom (Conservative)
14 December 2023

Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.