Support for pharmacies providing palliative care urged as hospices get cash injection

Community pharmacies are integral to palliative care and must be supported to provide it, pharmacists have told The Pharmaceutical Journal following a government announcement of funding for hospices.

Speaking at a House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee evidence session on palliative care, held on 7 January 2026, pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock announced an additional £25m in capital funding for hospices across England.

At the same session, Amanda Doyle, national director for primary care and community services at NHS England, highlighted the importance of community pharmacies in supplying and supporting patients with palliative care medications.

Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Association of Independent Pharmacies, told The Pharmaceutical Journal that this must be backed up with funding, while Graham Stretch, president of the Primary Care Pharmacy Association, said that the current incentive in the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) to provide palliative care drugs was insufficient and led to patchy access for patients.

During the evidence session, Kinnock stressed the importance of avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions for palliative care patients.

Doyle added: “I think it’s worth highlighting the important role of community pharmacy in this. We know the interventions that make people less likely to have to have an emergency admission is 24/7 advice, but importantly, it’s access to the medicines that might be needed at the end of life.

“In the places where we’re really seeing integrated, proactive, palliative end-of-life care, that involves community pharmacy, [it] involves having the drugs that might be needed ready and available in the patient’s home.”

Addressing the panel of NHS and government leaders, Layla Moran, chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, asked: “How are we going to achieve that? Community pharmacy has been struggling over the last few years.”

“We have the PQS where pharmacies, under the community pharmacy contract, get certain payments based on their quality criteria, and one of those is palliative and end-of-life care,” said Kinnock.

However, Stretch told The Pharmaceutical Journal that in his experience of prescribing anticipatory end-of-life medicines access to pharmacies that could supply them was “patchy”, particularly in rural areas.

“I do think pharmacists do, in general, try their very hardest to assist families at this point in people’s journeys.

“Realistically, the money available in the PQS, isn’t sufficient, really, I think, to encourage proprietors to be doing this consistently, unless they have a personal interest or they have a special interest in palliative care,” he added.

“What we need is a sufficiently funded offer, whether or not that universal in every pharmacy, or whether it’s done more strategically by local commissioning, that is sufficiently remunerated to encourage pharmacists to do it [so that it] becomes viable financially and doesn’t rely, as we always do, on goodwill.”

Hannbeck said: “Without a thriving pharmacy sector, the government’s vision for palliative care will be very difficult to deliver. Access to the right pharmacy services is an essential pillar of better palliative care.

“The danger is that with the community pharmacy sector in such a precarious state and the loss of more and more branches the pharmacies good palliative care needs will simply not be there, in too many instances.

“If the government is to make its words praising community pharmacy’s role in palliative care a reality, it will need to ensure that the wider forthcoming funding settlement is enough to keep pharmacy doors open and on hand for end-of-life patients.”

Heidi Wright, practice and policy lead for England at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), said: “The RPS and Marie Curie UK Daffodil standards provide a clear framework for high‑quality palliative and end‑of‑life care in community pharmacy, helping to ensure safe and timely care.

“Pharmacy teams must be fully integrated into local palliative care pathways, with seamless information sharing and access to patient records across the multidisciplinary team.

“Pharmacists can play a key role in anticipatory prescribing and supporting ‘just in case’ medicines, but this relies on proper planning, clear communication and a sustainable, well‑resourced community pharmacy network.”