NHS Standard Contract
Published on: 1st April 2016 | Updated on: 4th April 2025
Many services provided by community pharmacists are commissioned locally according to the needs of the local population in the relevant health and wellbeing board area. Locally commissioned community pharmacy services can be contracted via a number of different routes and by different commissioners, including local authorities (LAs), NHS England’s Regions (local NHS teams) and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
From 1 April 2014, local NHS teams and CCGs wishing to commission (non-primary care) community services are required to use the NHS Standard Contract – more information about the NHS Standard Contract can be found here).
Service level agreement (SLA)
As a result of commissioning, a written document, often incorporating an SLA, will be agreed between the parties.
Community Pharmacy England prepared the briefing below, which provides information on SLAs.
Community Pharmacy England Briefing 026/15: Contracts and Service Level Agreements
For the purpose of this briefing, a simple SLA is explained, which may be sufficient for some agreements between commissioners and individual pharmacy contractors.
Appendix 1 describes the terms to be found in an SLA.
Appendix 2 contains a simple SLA.
The 2025/26 NHS Standard Contract consultation completed in February 2025, this page will be updated once the 2025/26 version has been published.
NHS England publishes the NHS Standard Contract each year; the 2024/25 version is available on the NHS England Standard Contract webpage.
The NHS Standard Contract comparison documents were published on the NHS Standard Contract 2024/25 web page, the Particulars, Service Conditions, and General Conditions in full length and shorter form. The documents show the ‘tracked changes’ between the 2023/24 version of the Contract and the 2024/25 version.
In 2022/23, NHS England made a set of changes, which meant that the Service Conditions and the General Conditions no longer need to be exchanged between parties as part of the local agreement. Therefore, the Service Conditions and the General Conditions will exist only in the up-to-date online forms, as published by NHS England on the NHS England Standard Contract webpage.
The following documents have also been published:
- Summary of the changes in the contract technical guidance and in the response to the consultation feedback document.
- NHS sub-contracts for use with NHS Standard Contract (full length and shorter-form versions)
- Slides and recordings from NHS England webinars – NHS Standard Contract – FutureNHS Collaboration Platform (you’ll need to register for a FutureNHS account).
- Model collaborative commissioning agreements (single contracts and multiple contract options)
- Guidance on varying the 2024/25 contract
Q. What is the Mental Capacity and Deprivation of Liberty Lead?
The Mental Capacity and Deprivation of Liberty Lead is defined in the General Conditions of both the NHS Standard Contract and NHS Shorter-form Contract as the officer “responsible for advice, support, training and audit to ensure compliance with the 2005 Act, the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (where appropriate) and associated codes of practice, identified as such in the Particulars.”
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 aims to protect people who lack capacity, and maximise their ability to make decisions or participate in decision-making. It is important that patients are assumed to have capacity unless it is established otherwise. Further information on obligations under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 appear in the Department for Constitutional Affairs (now part of the Ministry of Justice)’s Code of Practice.
Q. I hear that the NHS Standard Contract requires us to have a Prevent Lead. What is this?
A Prevent Lead is defined in the General Conditions of the NHS Standard Contract as “the officer of the Provider responsible for implementation and dissemination of the Government Prevent Strategy, identified as such in the Particulars”. The Government’s Prevent Strategy concerns its counter-terrorism strategy to prevent radicalisation and stop would-be terrorists from committing mass murder – the Prevent Lead would assist in this objective.
Q. Does the NHS Standard Contract require pharmacy to maintain a gifts and hospitality register?
GC27 of the NHS Standard Contract and GC27 of the shorter form contract is the relevant provision which would require pharmacy to have a gifts and hospitality register and maintain and publish on its website an up-to-date register if required by law and / or guidance.
At the moment, there appears to be no law or guidance requiring a pharmacy to maintain a gifts and hospitality register.
For more information on this topic please email regulations.team@cpe.org.uk
