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Peak Pharmacy has warned it is being forced into “making decisions internally that do not have our patients’ best interests at heart” as it posted a pre-tax loss of £8.6m for the 12 months to November 30 in its latest annual accounts.

Peak Pharmacy director Peter Cattee said in the company’s 2024-25 financial report that capital expenditure is “frozen” due to the impact of the sector’s £2bn annual funding deficit on the company’s ability to make a profit.

He added: “The owners of the company are not willing to inject further funds to improve the network where this would be at a loss to themselves.”

The company ran a pre-tox loss of £8.6m, up from £6.8m in the prior year, with turnover up by around £100,000 to £179m and the cost of sales rising by over a million to reach £128m.

Operating losses stood at £8.4m compared to £6.7m in 2024-25, while gross profit percentage fell slightly from 28.9 per cent to 28.2 per cent.

Mr Cattee said: “During the current year, the company has once again continued to react to the challenging financial constraints that the sector has experienced.

“In the forthcoming year the company expects continued pressure on profitability due to reductions in the overall level of Government funding to pharmacies.

“Ongoing reviews of costs and branch performance alongside moving to a hub and spoke model in the coming year, should increase performance and profitability.”

He warned that despite the sector’s global sum allotment increasing in March 2025, the uplift was largely eaten up by rising employment and business rate costs.

“The Government’s lack of desire to address this funding crisis means that more pharmacy contractors will continue to be loss-making, and this in turn throws real risk to patient continuity and support when contractors inevitably go bust,” he wrote.

He described the company’s main risk factors as its reliance on NHS funding and “activities of the major competitors within the locality”.

Five Peak branches were disposed of in the 2024-25 financial year, with a further three sold after the financial year’s end and three more acquired in June 2026.

“Any acquisitions going forward are to strengthen the portfolio in geographic locations in which we are already established,” said the company, adding that it “continues to look at its portfolio in its entirety to ensure that all pharmacy sites fit within the company’s wider strategy”.

The company said its Horizon hub and spoke assembly site is “now fully operational” and “continues to grow in terms of volume,” now carrying out two-thirds of its total dispensing volume.

This improves safety by driving down error rates to less than a ten-thousandth of a per cent and creates “capacity across the pharmacy network to support patients in alternative ways,” said the company.

Items fell slightly due to “teething problems” associated with the new hub and spoke system but these issues “are now resolved” and Horizon’s performance has gone “from strength to strength,” said the company.

Services are “seeing monthly growth” but the challenge is that it “is very pharmacy-led” and patients “are still not fully aware of how community pharmacy can further support the GP network,” the financial report states.

Mr Cattee said: “We need to see GPs as a profession begin to signpost more Pharmacy First consultations to community pharmacy, as currently fewer than 10 per cent of all referrals are directly from GPs.”

Commenting on its future plans: Peak said it wants to “unlock the benefits of an automated hub and spoke system” to support service delivery.

The company added: “The ability for the company to have better visibility on its purchases from wholesalers needs to be unlocked with the central assembly of prescriptions, as this improves cash flow as well as reducing risk across the estate.”

The company also revealed it has launched a training academy programme to “upskill colleagues internally” and that it has moved to a new lender offering cheaper borrowing, which offers “a fresh start” and creates “the ability to grow or acquire in appropriate circumstances”.