Methodology

Published by the Pharmacy Compare editorial team.

Our goal

Pharmacy Compare is an independent directory that helps people find NHS-registered community pharmacies. We aim to be accurate and transparent, drawing only on official public data, and to label clearly anything we cannot verify.

Data sources

• NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) Community Pharmacy Contractor Details. The authoritative list of pharmacies holding an active NHS dispensing contract. Source of names, addresses, phone numbers, ODS codes and contract flags. Published at opendata.nhsbsa.net under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• NHS Digital Organisation Data Service (ODS) Current GP Practices dataset. Used for the Nearby NHS GP Surgeries section. We filter to primary role code RO76 so only genuine GP practices appear, excluding walk-in centres, out-of-hours services and screening clinics.
• Office for National Statistics (ONS) Census 2021 built-up area populations. Used to calculate the pharmacy density figure on town pages.

How the data is processed

1. We take the latest NHSBSA monthly release.
2. We filter to NHS community pharmacies, excluding private and appliance contractors.
3. We deduplicate records sharing an identical address and postcode, which occur during contractor transitions.
4. We normalise place names so spelling variants such as Stoke-on-Trent and Stoke On Trent resolve to one location.
5. We build the region, county and town hierarchy from the NHS region and county fields.
6. We match nearby GP practices by town first, then postcode district.

What we do not publish

We deliberately omit data we cannot verify, rather than estimating it:

• Opening hours. Not in the NHSBSA dataset. Every pharmacy page links to the official NHS pharmacy finder instead, and asks you to phone ahead. Where a pharmacy holds a 100-hour NHS contract we state that contractual fact, which is different from publishing actual hours.
• Pharmacy-specific NHS services. Whether an individual pharmacy offers Pharmacy First, vaccinations or blood pressure checks is not published per pharmacy in our source data. We describe these services generally and tell you to confirm with the pharmacy.
• Accessibility features. Wheelchair access, hearing loops, parking and signing services are not in the dataset and are marked for you to confirm.
• Ratings and reviews. We do not scrape reviews from Google, Trustpilot or anywhere else.
• Precise distances. We do not hold pharmacy coordinates, so we group by town and postcode district rather than claiming a distance in miles.

Geographic coverage

The NHSBSA contractor dataset covers England, plus limited coverage of the Crown Dependencies: Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Alderney. It holds no contractor information for Scotland or Northern Ireland, and coverage for Wales is limited.

For pharmacies in Scotland see NHS 24 Scotland. For Wales see NHS 111 Wales. For Northern Ireland see HSC Business Services Organisation.

Update frequency

NHSBSA publishes monthly, one month in arrears. We refresh after each release. Because the source updates monthly, a pharmacy that has recently closed, moved or changed number may briefly remain listed. Always call before travelling.

Original calculations

A small number of figures are calculated by us by combining datasets, and are disclosed as such: pharmacy density per town, from ONS population divided by our pharmacy count; nearby GP matching; and the region, county and town hierarchy.

Independence

Pharmacy Compare is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of NHS England, NHSBSA, NHS Digital, ONS, or any pharmacy or pharmacy chain. No pharmacy pays to be listed or to be positioned more prominently.

Corrections

Email info@pharmacycompare.uk with the ODS code shown on the listing. See our Editorial Policy for how corrections are handled.