The government today (March 31) announced that the morning-after pill will become “available free of charge at pharmacies on the NHS for the first time ever”.
This will “[end] the postcode lottery women face in accessing the medicine” and reduce inequalities, the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) said.
According to Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the expansion will begin in October “subject to the introduction of IT updates”, with a consultation fee of £20 “plus the cost of any emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) provided”.
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The news was revealed in a letter to pharmacy contractors confirming that an agreement has been reached between the DH, NHS England (NHSE) and CPE on the funding arrangements for the community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF) for 2024/25 and 2025/26.
As well as the expansion to the pharmacy contraception service (PCS) to include emergency contraception (EC), the new funding deal includes an 18.6%, or £481 million, increase on 2023/2024 sector funds.
Under the deal, £30m of spend on the pharmacy contraception and hypertension services that was previously funded “within the contract sum” will now be funded from a £215m Pharmacy First budget, CPE said.
“Equitable access”
“This service expansion will allow all community pharmacies across England the opportunity to provide equitable access to EC for patients,” the letter said, adding that it will mean a “move away from the regional variation seen to date”.
“Contractors will have the opportunity to maximise the service’s benefits by initiating a patient on oral contraception as part of an EC consultation and claim payment for both services,” it added.
And CPE said that it had been “successful in persuading the DH and NHSE to increase the consultation fee for both initiation and repeat supplies of contraception to £25 – a 39% increase” – from April.
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“This increased fee better reflects the costs of provision of the service, particularly initiation consultations, which generally take longer to provide,” it added.
“Suitably trained and competent pharmacy technicians will also be able to provide the service, supporting greater use of skill mix by pharmacy owners, where that fits within their business plans,” according to the negotiator.
Drospirenone will now be supplied under a patient group direction (PGD) – which can be delivered by pharmacy technicians - for the PCS under the new pharmacy contract, the DH added.
“Postcode lottery”
National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair Nick Kaye said that the body has “long called for national commissioning of emergency contraception so this is good news for patients and pharmacies alike”.
“For too long, access to free services has been a postcode lottery for patients, with local arrangements only existing in certain parts of the country and often being underfunded,” he added.
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“Pharmacies are under enormous pressure amid the impact of record cuts to their budgets, so it is important any scheme fully reimburses them for this work,” Kaye stressed.
And Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison also welcomed the expansion of the contraception service, which he said the body had been “urging for some time”.
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