Greater Manchester has lost 31 pharmacies in the last two years. Newly-released figures from the National Pharmacy Association show dozens of pharmacies - identified by the government as vital to their communities - across the country have closed.
The £20m Pharmacy Access Scheme was launched to protect pharmacies in areas where people do not have ready access to medication, as well as areas with significantly higher than average levels of deprivation.
It offered an additional government subsidy to 'capture the pharmacies that are most important for patient access, those pharmacies where patient and public access would be affected should they close', according to the NHS.
But analysis of the current national register of pharmacies, maintained by the General Pharmaceutical Council, shows at least 58 of the specially-protected pharmacies listed in 2022 are no longer open.