Labour MP for North Somerset Sadik Al-Hassan, a community pharmacist by profession, has claimed chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget will put the health service “on a road to renewal” and suggested it could help address “the decline of community pharmacies in many towns across the country”.

Making his maiden speech in the House of Commons yesterday (November 4), Mr Al-Hassan said he had witnessed this decline “at first hand,” commenting: “That is why I was proud to see in the Budget such a strong commitment from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to rebuilding our NHS, with the largest increase in funding — outside the pandemic — since 2010.”

“The chancellor has put us on a road to renewal with this budget,” he said, arguing that “many of my colleagues in the healthcare sector will be grateful to her”.

In her budget last week, Ms Reeves announced a £22.6bn increase to the NHS budget, in addition to a £3.1bn in the Department of Health and Social Care’s capital budget over the next two years.

While it is anticipated that England’s community pharmacy sector is likely to see some share of this increased spending, concerns have been raised that the 6.7 per cent hike to the living wage and the 8.7 per cent increase to the national insurance burden for employers announced in last week’s budget could offset any uplift to the sector’s global sum.

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Liberal Democrat MP for Guildford Zoe Franklin said the NI hike would penalise business owners, commenting: “I have spoken to small business owners in my constituency, including an independent pharmacy owner, and each has shared with me how the hike will have a hugely detrimental impact on their business, and will impact their employees.”

Warning of “unintended consequences,” Ms Franklin said she had already received a letter from a constituent who claimed to have been made redundant as a direct result of the new tax rises.

Yesterday, the National Pharmacy Association said it would be an “insult” to pharmacies if the chancellor shielded GP surgeries from the impact of the tax hikes but did not do the same for community pharmacies.

Meanwhile, the Independent Pharmacies Association has calculated the measures announced in the budget will cost pharmacies more than £125m collectively, or £12,002 per pharmacy per year.