Revealed: NHS to claw back over a million in Pharmacy First cash
Pharmacy First funding is set to be “recovered” from over 500 pharmacy contractors who did not meet consultation thresholds, NHS data has revealed.
Some £2,000 in upfront Pharmacy First funding is set to be recovered from a total of 555 contractors, NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) data last week (August 23) revealed.
In November, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) announced that pharmacies signing up to run the Pharmacy First common ailments service would receive a £2,000 upfront payment, in addition to monthly and individual consultation payments.
But it stressed the initial £2,000 would be “recovered” from contractors if they “had not delivered five clinical pathways consultations” by March 31, 2024.
Now, a Freedom of Information (FoI) request asking the authority “how many pharmacies failed to deliver” five clinical consultations in the timeframe, and “therefore had the initial £2,000 upfront payment recovered”, has revealed that over a million pounds will be reclaimed.
“On-going” process
Responding to the question, NHS BSA said that “555 contractors have submitted claims but missed the target of 5 clinical pathway consultations during February and March”.
At £2,000 each, the amount set to be reclaimed across all 555 pharmacies totals £1,110,000.
“Please note that recovery of fees may not have taken place with all contractors at this time,” NHS BSA added.
“This process is on-going,” it said.
Consultation chaos
Alongside the upfront £2,000 payment, a £1,000 monthly payment is also on offer for pharmacies who deliver a minimum number of consultations each month, which has increased incrementally since the service began in February.
But last month, CPE warned the thresholds for the “monthly Pharmacy First payment [had] been a topic of great concern for pharmacy owners and CPE”.
It then announced the minimum number of consultations pharmacies would have to complete in August to qualify for the monthly payment of £1,000 would be reduced from 20 to 15.
But the decision only applies to this month, meaning that the threshold is still set to increase to 20 in September. And the October consultation threshold is set rise to 30.
In July, NHS BSA data revealed that pharmacies in England delivered an average of 16.8 NHS Pharmacy First service consultations for the seven clinical pathways in April.
But 1,598 pharmacies recorded no consultations under the clinical pathways and 785 secured between one and five consultations in April, lower than the threshold for the month.
Meanwhile also in July, a British Medical Association (BMA) spokesperson told C+D that large numbers of GP practices switched off the “update record” function of GP Connect.
And in June, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) warned that pharmacies in England could lose out on £465m in funding “promised by the government” to back the Pharmacy First service over two years based on current trends.
At the time, it said that its analysis shows that “at the current rate, only £180m is expected to be delivered to pharmacies in England out of the £645m that the government has allocated” by the end of March 2025.
