New Funding Deal for Community Pharmacy Explained

This marks significant development for a crucial component but sometimes overlooked or primary care.

This occurs just after substantial changes in the GP contract were announced in February 2025, forming a coordinated approach to strengthen primary care services in England.

Keep reading for more details.

The guaranteed financing for the community pharmacy through the CPCF will increase to £ 2,698 billion (an increase of 4.1%) by 2024-2025 and then jump to £ 3,073 billion in 2025-2026.

This represents a substantial increase of 19.7% in financing levels 2023-2024 and 15% in 2024-2025. For the context, this exceeds the general increase in NHS financing or 5.8% by 2025-2026.

In addition to this central financing, pharmacies can access additional £ 215 million through the First Pharmacy and other services of the Primary Care Access Recovery Plan.

The government also agreed to cancel £ 193 million in the delivery of margin of historical medicines, mainly achieving the duration of the pandemic.

As of April 2025, several key rates will increase:

• Unique activity rate: From £ 1.27 to £ 1.46

• Pharmacy contraception service: From £ 18 to £ 25 per consultation

• PHARMACY FIRST Consultations: From £ 15 to £ 17

• New Medicine Service: Simplified two payments of £ 14

• Hypertension case search service: Restructured with clinical checks reduced to £ 10, but ABPM queries increase to £ 50.85

As of October 2025, two key services will expand:

1. THE NEW MEDICINE SERVICE Will add depression as a compatible therapeutic area

2. The pharmacy contraception service It will include emergency contraception with a £ 20 rate per consultation

   
   

One of the most practical changes in the new framework is the expansion of the flexibility of the workforce within pharmacies. Of 2025-2026, pharmacy equipment can make a better use or a combination of skills with registered pharmacy staff and not registered enabled to deliver parts of the key services.

Notable pharmacy technicians will now be able to provide services under instructions from the patient group (PGDs). This is a significant development that allows qualified pharmacy technicians to provide and administer certain medications to patients without recipe, after an approved protocol.

This change will apply both to the service to quit and to the pharmaceutical contraception service, with PGDs introduced for vareniclin and cystoinylin (cystine) in the service to quit smoking, and drospyrenone is added to the contraception service.

For the leaders and contractors of the pharmacy, this means:

• More efficient use of the entire pharmacy equipment

• Potential to increase service capacity

• New professional development opportunities for pharmacy technicians

• Greater flexibility in how services are delivered

This is aligned with the broader workforce strategies of the NHS that aim to optimize the combination of skills in health environments and make better use of the full range of workforce capacities.

The pharmacy quality scheme (PQS) is the quality improvement scheme and incentives for community pharmacies in England and It will be reinstated with a value of £ 30 million as of April 2025, focusing on:

• Palliative and final attention of life: Develop/update action plans and confirm the storage of essential medicines

• Respiratory attention: Reference requirements for patients from 5 to 15 years without spacers and those who use multiple bronchodilators without corticosteroid inhalers

• First Pharmacy: Completion of clinical audits and training in sepsis

• Emergency contraception: required training completion

• NMS depression: Training requirements to consult with people with mental health problems

• Improved DBS Verifications: Required for all pharmacy professionals recorded in the last 3 years

The first pharmacy service (which has delivered more than 1.9 million consultations to date) will evolve with a revised fixed payment structure from 2025:

• £ 500 fixed payment for 20-29 clinical road consultations per month

• £ 1,000 Maximum payment for more than 30 consultations

• Additional service delivery requirements will be eliminated until March 2026

Several regulatory changes will be made in 2025 to reduce bureaucracy, including:

• Clarification Rules for Distance Sale Pharmacies

• Eliminate requirements for practice brochures and staff references

• Eliminating the need for recipe load signatures

• Eliminate clinical audit requirements for 2025-2026

Up to £ 8 million will admit digital developments, particularly to optimize the claims process through “managing your service” and supporting new clinical services.

This impulse of pharmacy financing is parallel to significant changes in the GP contract announced in February, which included:

• An increase of £ 889 million in investment (growth of 7.2%)

• A new improved service of £ 80 million for advice and guidance

• QOF bureaucracy reduction with 32 permanently removed indicators

• Greater flexibility in the additional roles reimbursement scheme

• Digital access improvements

These parallel ads suggest a coordinated approach to strengthen primary care in England, with the community pharmacy and the general practice that receive significant investment increases and structural changes.

The government seems to change attention to community environments and improve digital access.

The first scheme of the pharmacy continues to expand, presenting opportunities and challenges for integration with general practice.

The greatest approach to the prevention of ECV in general practice is also aligned with the case of hypertension cases in the community pharmacy.

The primary care of THC is a award -winning specialization of health consulting in the management of the Primary Care Network and the creator of the Podcast Business of Healthcare. We have supported more than 200 PCN through interim management, training and consulting.

Our experience covers project management and business development in public and private sectors. Our work has been published in the London Journal of Primary Care, and we have written about 250 blogs that share ideas about primary care networks.

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