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A survey by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has lifted the lid on the shocking impact poor Government funding is having on the pharmacy network in Wales as owners are forced to remortgage their homes and dip into personal savings to keep their branches open.

The survey published today found 60 per cent of pharmacy owners had to resort to either measure to avoid closure while four in 10 pharmacies in the country were not profitable last year. The survey was completed by 246 pharmacies last month.

Thirty-three per cent of pharmacies were unable to pay their wholesaler bills at some point in 2025. The NPA said no pharmacies who took part in the survey “had sufficient funding to deliver their core services as set out by their contact with NHS Wales”.

Eighty-nine per cent of pharmacies either stopped offering services to patients or started charging for them. Just four per cent said they “were in a financial position” to support the Welsh Government's blueprint for community pharmacy which sets out an expansion of services in pharmacies.

Warning pharmacies are “clinging on by their fingertips”, the NPA urged the Welsh Government to provide “an urgent stabilisation payment” similar to the £23 million support fund it offered GPs last year.

The NPA said a pharmacy stabilisation payment would “prevent pharmacies from crumbling under the strain of stagnant funding and increasing costs”.

“Over the last five years, 32 pharmacies have shut permanently in Wales,” it warned.

The NPA Welsh board member David Thomas said the survey’s “shocking findings should sound major alarm bells” to the Government “and will understandably cause concern to patients who depend on their local pharmacy”.

“It is simply unsustainable and unfair to expect individual pharmacy owners to remortgage their house and dip into their pension pot to subsidise the cost of prescriptions and to keep their doors open for their patients,” he said, warning the Welsh Government that its vision for community pharmacy risks “going up in smoke” if pharmacies do not receive support.

“To prevent this from happening, the Government should step in and offer pharmacies a stabilisation payment, similar to recently offered to GP colleagues.

“Only through stabilisation and long-term investment can pharmacies deliver the expansion in services for patients and take pressure away from others in the NHS.”

Community Pharmacy Wales chief executive Russell Goodway said his organisation has been in talks with the health and social care minister Jeremy Miles about a stabilisation payment since before Christmas.

“Such support is essential to prevent further deterioration and to safeguard the sustainability of the sector,” Goodway said. “We will continue to make a strong and evidence-based case for the additional resources that are urgently needed.”