The NPA says this is to protect patients, in the absence of a financial settlement that covers a swathe of new costs due to hit pharmacies from the start of next month.

Additional unfunded costs due to hit pharmacies on 1 April include increased National Insurance contributions, National Living Wage and business rates.

Around 90% of an average pharmacy's work is funded via the NHS, including dispensing medication and vaccinations. However, although the end of the current financial year is just days away, pharmacies are yet to receive any confirmation of funding for either the 2024/25 or 25/26 financial years that might allow them to avoid service reductions.

Pharmacies have seen around a 40% cut to this funding in real terms since 2017, forcing record numbers to close. Data shows 29 pharmacies have shut since the beginning of the year, with around 1,300 pharmacies shutting down since 2017.

The NPA is recommending that its members give notice of reducing opening hours or other services until a funding deal emerges that would allow them to meet additional cost pressures and maintain safe services to patients. That could involve fewer pharmacies opening in the evenings and at weekends, as well as limiting home deliveries and withdrawing from some locally commissioned schemes like addiction support.

Pharmacies need to give the NHS five weeks' notice of a change in hours.

NPA chair, Nick Kaye, said: ‘This is not a step any of us wants to take, but we have been left with little choice because in just two weeks new business costs will be hitting local NHS pharmacies across the country.

‘It is better that we temporarily reduce access in the short term than to let pharmacies collapse altogether under the weight of unsustainable operating costs.'

He added: ‘Pharmacies have shut in record numbers and those that are left are hanging on by their fingernails waiting for the delivery of a financial settlement that protects services on which millions of people rely.

‘We hope that an offer from the government emerges by 1 April to cover the additional costs which pharmacies will face and start to plug the huge gap in funding created by 10 years of real terms cuts.'

In response, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan, said: ‘This announcement is deeply concerning and will worry many who rely on their local pharmacy to access the essential prescriptions they need to get through their daily lives.

‘For too long, the Government has left a massive question mark over the support they will give to pharmacies. The consequences of this failure are now painfully apparent. Ministers need to get around the table immediately and work around the clock to prevent this from happening or risk many suffering unnecessarily.'