Some £215 million has “been secured to enable the [Pharmacy First] service to continue to grow” as part of the new pharmacy funding deal, the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) and Community Pharmacy England (CPE) yesterday (March 31) announced.
This “Pharmacy First budget” will fund the cost of clinical pathways consultations as well as the pharmacy contraception service (PCS) and the hypertension case-finding service (HCFS) – encompassing a £30m spend on the contraception and blood pressure services previously within the contract sum.
CPE said that it had secured “measures that should ensure that all the allocated funding for Pharmacy First will be spent on the sector in 2025/26”.
Read more: BREAKING: New 2025 CPCF funding deal - uplift revealed
Currently pharmacies offering the service, which has enabled them to treat seven common conditions without the need for a GP appointment or prescription since January 2024, are paid a £15 item of service (IoS) fee for each consultation.
But CPE yesterday announced that from today (April 1), “fees for the minor illness and clinical pathway consultations part of Pharmacy First are being uplifted to £17”.
However, the urgent medicine supply fee will remain at £15, it said.
£500 payments from June
“In addition to the increased clinical pathways consultation fee…a revision to the fixed payment arrangements has also been agreed from June,” the DH and CPE told contractors.
Currently, pharmacies must deliver a minimum of 30 Pharmacy First consultations to qualify for a fixed £1,000 monthly payment.
But the letter said that from June, a new £500 payment will be available to contractors delivering between 20 and 29 clinical pathway consultations per month under a new “banded approach”.
Read more: Funding breakdown: Write-offs, service payments and activity fees
A £1,000 payment will still be available for pharmacies delivering 30 or more consultations a month, it added.
“To enable the variable payment, the claim window for Pharmacy First will be reduced to one month from June,” it said.
Read more: Health minister Stephen Kinnock on the 2025 funding deal: ‘I know it’s not perfect, but...’
But CPE confirmed that “the recent change to allow an additional twelve months to claim payment where an issue with IT systems prevented the submission of a claim will remain”.
“As is currently the case, only consultations under the clinical pathways element of Pharmacy First will count towards eligibility for the initial and ongoing fixed payments identified above,” the DH said.
Pharmacy First latest
Meanwhile, pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock last month revealed that just £82m of the “up to” £645m Pharmacy First budget was spent in the first eight months of 2024/25.
In February, NHSE announced that GPs must reinstall GP Connect, which allows pharmacies to send Pharmacy First consultation data to their patients’ GP practices, as part of their £889m-boosted contract.
Read more: GPs ordered to switch on GP Connect by new contract
And in January, YouGov revealed that three-quarters of the public support pharmacies providing treatment for additional conditions, including chest infections and skin conditions.
The same month, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) revealed that three-quarters of pharmacists have been pressured to undertake Pharmacy First consultations, while the same proportion warned they cannot “safely deliver” the service.
Check the C+D site for the latest coverage on this developing story
