GOVERNMENT cuts could see up to 35 local pharmacies shut in Bradford, piling more pressure onto the district’s already strained GP surgeries and A&E units, say campaigners.

Hundreds of people from the district have signed a petition - which has 1.5m signatures nationwide and was handed in earlier this week to Downing Street in a bid to protect vital pharmacy services.

Pharmacist Adam Issat, at Girlington Pharmacy, said more than 200 of his customers added their names at the counter and that he directed many more to the online campaign to add their support.

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“The government has made no secret it wants to close pharmacies down. We’ve no idea which pharmacies it would affect. It will be the survival of the fittest, who is busier and who is not. There will be more visits to GPs for minor ailments and it’s going to impact hospitals and A&E,” said Mr Issat.

Robbie Turner, chief executive officer of Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire, said if the Government went ahead and reduced the funding it gave to community pharmacies, statistically one in four of them could shut – which would mean Bradford losing up to 35 out of the 140 it currently has.

New research for the Dispensing Health Equality organisation has revealed that, if faced with a closure, more than one in four people who would normally seek advice first from their local pharmacy would instead make an appointment with their GP practice. NHS research says that figure could rises to as many as four in five people in areas of high deprivation.

Mr Turner said: “Community pharmacy teams are the first port of call for healthcare for many people and our regular patients and the wider community really rely on us. There is already extreme pressure on GP services and closing pharmacies will pile more pressure on them whilst reducing the role pharmacy teams play in promoting public health.”

In December last year the Department of Health, supported by the NHS, started talks with pharmacy representative groups as well as patient and public groups, discussing changes to funding and how community pharmacies could work in the future to become more efficient. NHS funding was £2.8 billion in England in 2015/16 but for 2016/17 it will be no higher than £2.63 billion with reductions expected to start in October.

Ideas for changes include giving patients more choice about how they access their medications and advice, whether it is ordering prescriptions on-line from a large-scale automated dispensing hub to have delivered to their home or to click and collect.

A Government spokesman said: “We want to work closely with community pharmacy and others on the changes necessary to deliver these efficiencies.”