ArticleBMJ open2025
The Positive Pharmacy Care Law revisited: an area-level analysis of the relationship between community pharmacy distribution, urbanicity and deprivation in England.
Article in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of Community Pharmacy-Led Depression Services: Service Components, Outcomes, and Implementation Barriers and Facilitators.Depression and anxiety · 2026Pooled it
- Community pharmacy and lung cancer: a service innovation pilot using community pharmacy across Leeds to signpost patients with symptoms of possible lung cancers towards a patient self-request chest X-ray service.BMJ open respiratory research · 2026Article
- Empowering patients? The role of self-referral in early cancer detection.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- "Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectives(1) Determine geographical access to community pharmacy in England, (2) explore the relationship between community pharmacy access and urbanity and multiple deprivation and (3) understand any changes in access over time.
designAn area-level spatial analysis study exploring the relationship between spatial access to and availability of community pharmacies over the past 10 years from 2014 to 2023, deprivation and urbanicity, using Geographic Information System and descriptive statistics on a Middle layer Super Output Area level. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE: Availability per 10 000 people of a community pharmacy in their local area.
resultsFor geographical access, in 2014, 91.3% of people lived within a 20-minute walk to a community pharmacy and, in 2023, this number increased to 91.7%. There was a positive relationship between geographical community pharmacy access and urbanity and geographical community pharmacy access and deprivation. For availability, the median number of community pharmacies per 10 000 people in 2014 was 1.60, while in 2023, the number reduced to 1.51 community pharmacies per 10 000 people. The most deprived areas were more likely to lose a pharmacy, compared with the least deprived areas (OR 1.65 (1.38, 1.98)).
conclusionsThere is high access to community pharmacies in England with access to a community pharmacy greatest in the most deprived areas, showing that the 'positive pharmacy care law' remains. However, the 'positive pharmacy care law' is eroding as the availability of community pharmacies has reduced over time-particularly in deprived areas, with more people reliant on each community pharmacy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.