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PharmData insights
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National trends, pharmacy rankings and insights into NHS services.
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- Pharmacy FirstExplore national service activity and trends.
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England
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National trends, pharmacy rankings and insights into NHS services.
Browse all reports →National leaderboards
NHS service reports
- Pharmacy FirstExplore national service activity and trends.
- Flu vaccinationsExplore vaccination activity and trends.
- Hypertension case-findingExplore blood pressure service activity.
EPS & dispensing
- EPS nominationsNational trends, rankings and ICB comparisons.
- Distance selling pharmaciesExplore activity across distance selling pharmacies.
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Pharmacy First in England
Tracking how community pharmacies across England are delivering the Pharmacy First service — national activity, pharmacy-level performance, and how it varies between ICBs.
Has Pharmacy First activity kept growing?
Monthly Pharmacy First activity across England since the service launched in January 2024.
Activity reached its highest recorded level in June 2026. June 2026 recorded 626,320 consultations, 3.9% higher than May 2026 (602,821 consultations), 35.2% higher than June 2025 a year earlier.
Is growth accelerating or levelling off?
Monthly totals fluctuate; the 3-month average line filters that noise out so the underlying trajectory is easier to read.
Monthly consultations & 3-month average
Bars show each month’s total consultations; the line is the average of that month and the two before it.
The latest 3-month average is 600,728 consultations per month, higher than 555,416 during the previous three months (+8.2%).
vs May 2026
vs the same month last year
January 2024 to June 2026
What does a typical pharmacy deliver?
National totals can hide big differences between pharmacies. These figures cover every active pharmacy that reported data in June 2026, including pharmacies that recorded no Pharmacy First activity that month.
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Distribution of activity across pharmacies
Number of active pharmacies by Pharmacy First consultations delivered in June 2026. Markers show where the median and mean fall within the spread.
Half of active pharmacies delivered 50 consultations or fewer during June 2026. The mean was higher at 60.6, reflecting a distribution in which a smaller number of pharmacies delivered substantially higher volumes. The middle 50% of pharmacies delivered between 31 and 75 consultations. 37.0% of active pharmacies delivered more than the mean.
Delivering vs. no recorded activity
Of pharmacies that reported data in June 2026.
A further 252 active pharmacies hadn’t submitted data for June 2026 at the time of writing and aren’t counted as either.
What is Pharmacy First treating?
Explore the conditions being managed through Pharmacy First and how the national case mix has changed over time.
Clinical pathway mix
Block area = consultations recorded for that pathway in the selected month. Each condition keeps the same colour across months.
Selected month
Clinical pathway consultations
Neither is a clinical-pathway condition, so both are shown separately from the treemap.
Sore throat was the most frequently recorded Pharmacy First clinical pathway in June 2026, accounting for 30.2% of clinical-pathway consultations, followed by Uncomplicated UTI at 22.7%.
How has the clinical mix changed?
Monthly pathway activity since launch. Click a condition in the legend to hide or show it.
Acute otitis media accounted for 10.3% of clinical-pathway consultations in June 2026, compared with 8.4% in June 2025 a year earlier — the largest increase in share of any pathway over that period. Uncomplicated UTI saw the largest decrease over the same period, down from 25.1% to 22.7%.
Performance across England
Grouped into NHS England’s 7 commissioning regions. Consultations per active pharmacy controls for differences in the number of pharmacies between regions, so it’s shown by default rather than raw totals.
Regional activity ranged from 50.2 consultations per active pharmacy in North East and Yorkshire to 72.9 in South West, compared with an England average of 60.6.
Comparing Integrated Care Boards
A benchmarking view across England’s ICBs, not a league table — local factors such as list sizes, GP access and pharmacy density all affect these figures. Covers 100.0% of active pharmacies that have an ICB recorded in PharmData; the remainder don’t have one recorded and are included in the national totals above but not in this breakdown.
Across England's ICBs, consultations per active pharmacy ranged from 46.4 to 106.7 in June 2026. The England average was 60.6, and the median individual ICB rate was 62.3.
Top 10 ICBs
By consultations per active pharmacy, June 2026.
Bottom 10 ICBs
By consultations per active pharmacy, June 2026.
All ICBs
Highest to lowest, June 2026. The dashed line marks the England average.
All ICBs
| ICB unfold_more | Active pharmacies unfold_more | Total consultations unfold_more | Per active pharmacy unfold_more | Change vs previous month unfold_more | vs England average |
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How has your ICB changed over time?
Select an ICB to compare its consultations per active pharmacy against the England average, month by month.
Pharmacy First at a glance
A handful of reference figures that don’t appear elsewhere on this page.
Methodology & data source
- Source
- Figures are drawn from NHSBSA Pharmacy First data loaded into PharmData, on the same schedule as the rest of the site’s dispensing and services data.
- Latest reporting month
- The latest month shown (June 2026) is the newest month in PharmData’s dataset that has reached a realistic full reporting volume. NHS administrative data can be revised after publication, and PharmData reflects the latest dataset it has loaded, which may not yet include late resubmissions.
- What’s counted
- Pharmacy First consultations are the sum of NHSBSA’s reported clinical-pathway consultation counts, Urgent Medicine Supply consultations and onward referrals for each pharmacy and month. This matches how Pharmacy First totals are already calculated elsewhere on PharmData.
- Clinical pathways
- The “What is Pharmacy First treating?” section covers the 7 named clinical pathways NHSBSA reports (Acute otitis media, Sore throat, Impetigo, Infected insect bites, Shingles, Sinusitis and Uncomplicated UTI). Two other figures NHSBSA reports alongside these are deliberately kept separate rather than treated as an 8th condition: Urgent Medicine Supply (supplying a patient’s existing or regular medicine urgently, not a clinical presentation) and Minor illness referrals (a patient referred elsewhere rather than treated under a pathway). Because of this, the 7 pathways add up to only part of the overall Pharmacy First total shown elsewhere on this page — in a typical recent month, roughly half. Percentages in this section are always a share of clinical-pathway consultations specifically, not of all Pharmacy First activity.
- “Active pharmacy” on this page
- An open pharmacy in England (not permanently closed) that submitted data for the month in question. “Delivering Pharmacy First” means it recorded at least one consultation that month — this page doesn’t describe pharmacies as “participating”, since PharmData’s data only shows recorded activity, not formal service registration.
- How per-pharmacy averages are calculated
- Consultations per active pharmacy divides total consultations by every active pharmacy that submitted data that month — including ones that recorded no Pharmacy First activity — not just delivering pharmacies. ICB and regional per-pharmacy figures are calculated the same way, from each area’s own totals, rather than by averaging individual pharmacies’ rates together.
- Geographic aggregation
- ICB is each pharmacy’s commissioning Integrated Care Board, and regions are NHS England’s 7 commissioning regions grouped from those ICBs. A meaningful share of pharmacies don’t have an ICB recorded in PharmData; these are included in national figures but excluded from the ICB and regional breakdowns, which are noted as covering a majority (not all) of active pharmacies.
- Limitations
- Consultation volumes reflect what pharmacies record against Pharmacy First, not the number of patients treated or clinical outcomes. Small ICBs can show more volatile month-to-month changes simply because they have fewer pharmacies.