CPCF Overview

On 31st March 2025 it was announced that arrangements for the 2024/25 and 2025/26 contract have been finalised. As part of this, community pharmacy will be receiving the largest uplift in funding across the whole of the NHS.

PLEASE NOTE: Following the announcement on 31st March that arrangements for the 2024/25 and 2025/26 contract have been finalised, we are currently reviewing and updating the content on this webpage.

Click a button below to learn what the changes mean for you:

What you need to know:

New Medicine Service (NMS)

From 1st April 2025. Pharmacies will receive a £14 fee for each completed Intervention or Follow-up consultation, with a total of £28 if both are provided. CPE have published a news story using a series of FAQs to explain these changes
From October 2025, antidepressants will be added to the New Medicine Service (NMS). There is no mandatory training for this addition but a related training programme on consulting with people with mental health problems will be included in the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS)
NMS will no longer be able to be subcontracted to other providers – this change will only be effective after the Directions for the service have been amended

Pharmacy First

The fee for Pharmacy First minor illness and clinical pathways consultations will increase from £15 to £17
The claim window for Pharmacy First will be reduced to one month from June 2025. whilst the Urgent Medicine Supply fee will remain at £15
From June 2025, a banded approach for the Pharmacy First monthly payment will be introduced: £500 for those delivering 20-29 consultations and £1,000 for those that achieve 30 or more
From June 2025, to receive the monthly payment (described above) , contractors must be registered and able to deliver the Hypertension Case Finding Service (note: distance selling pharmacies will be exempt from the service requirements), PCS and Pharmacy First service
From October 2025, contractors will be required to deliver one ABPM consultation per month, in addition to meeting the above requirements
From March 2026, this requirement will increase to provide a specified number (yet to be agreed) of PCS consultations (including EC consultations), in addition to meeting the above requirements in order to receive the monthly payment
NHS England has undertaken a clinical review of the clinical pathways, and the updated pathways will be published shortly

Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS)

The fee for both initiation and continuation Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) consultations will increase from £18 to £25.
Suitably trained and competent Pharmacy Technicians will also be able to provide the service
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
From October 2025, subject to the introduction of IT updates, the service will be expanded to include Emergency Hormonal Contraception (EHC), with a fee of £20 per consultation, plus the cost of any EHC provided to the patient

LFD Service

The LFD Tests Supply Service has been extended for another year, starting 1 April 2025.
The item of service (IoS) fee for the service has increased from £4.00 to £4.10.

Smoking Cessation Service (SCS)

Changes to be introduced, to allow suitably trained and competent staff to provide the service, alongside pharmacists and pharmacy technicians
PGDs will be introduced in 2025 to 2026 to enable the provision of varenicline and cytisinicline (cytisine), and for the PCS the addition of drospirenone to be supplied under PGD – start date to be announced

Hypertension Case Finding (HCF)

From April 2025, the fee for a clinic check consultation will reduce from £15 to £10. The fee for an ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) consultation will increase from £45 to £50.85
Changes will be made to allow suitably trained pharmacy staff to provide the service
Service specification will be amended to further align the service to NICE guidelines, which will place explicit restrictions on the number of funded clinic check consultations a patient can have within a specified time period and clarify patient eligibility requirements, e.g. where people request frequent measurement of their blood pressure (which is outside the scope of the service) and groups of patients that general practices can appropriately refer to the service for clinic checks.

Dispensing

From 1st April, the Single Activity Fee (SAF) has increased by 19p to £1.46 per item
From 1st April the margin allowance for community pharmacy has risen to £900 million per year
From 1st April the need for people who pay prescription charges to sign has been removed

Distance Selling Pharmacy (DSP)

Patients are now able to choose a distance selling pharmacy (DSP) when advised by NHS111 online to self-refer to a pharmacy for a minor illness or a common condition (clinical pathway) element of Pharmacy First.
DSPs will be able to fulfil emergency supply of prescribed medicine requests.
From October 2025, PLPS regulations will be amended to clarify that, distance selling pharmacies can only deliver advanced and enhanced services remotely in line with the delivery of essential services

Regulations

The requirement for practice leaflets has been removed
References are no longer required for staff involved in delivering NHS services
Amends made to the regulatory test to change the dates and times that pharmacies deliver their core hours – change will only be effective after the PLPS regulations have been amended
The clinical audit requirement (nationally chosen audit or a contractor selected audit) for 2025 to 2026 has been removed
Pharmacies are required to engage in 2 national health campaigns and 2 integrated care board (ICB) selected campaigns

Future considerations

As part of this settlement, CPE secured assurances that the government will look into a number of others matters, including in relation to funding and digital developments:

Digital Developments

Agreement to continue work to deliver digital developments for the pharmacy sector in 2025 to 2026 to better support delivery of clinical services and streamline the ‘Manage your service’ claim process
A pledge to conclude development of MYS APIs for all clinical services

Funding

Commitment to work with CPE to manage and review the operation of the margin system
Commitment to work with CPE to set out a sustainable funding and operational model to underpin the sector’s contribution to healthcare
Consideration of further strategies to stabilise Category, speed up Category M reimbursement price setting arrangements and change Category C reimbursement price setting.
Exploration of the impact of prescribing activities (such as the use of Branded Generics) on community pharmacy medicine margin.
Consideration of supporting earlier payment for dispensing (on the 1st instead of 12th of the month) with a wider ambition to redesign the whole payment timetable to reduce complexity.
Confirmation that the views and points raised in the negotiations and wider discussions with CPE (including the findings of the Economic Analysis) will inform the ongoing work on the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

Service Delivery

Commitment to work with CPE to manage and review both Pharmacy First delivery
Commitment to laying the foundations for an independent prescribing service
Further consideration of the use of caps, where required, to provide equity of access to funding for the clinical services.

Resources

CPE have produced a number of useful resources to outline key aspects of the settlement. We strongly encourage you to read these documents:

To support the implementation process, CPE will be publishing further guidance and resources. Please review their dedicated webpage (linked below) to stay up to date.

What you need to know:

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