Claim period extended for four Advanced services

A new provision has been agreed from February 2025 which provides pharmacy owners with a longer time period to claim for provision of certain services if IT issues outside of a pharmacy owner’s control have prevented them from making a claim within the required time period. This new provision applies to the following services:

• Hypertension Case-Finding Service;
• Pharmacy Contraception Service;
• Pharmacy First; and
• Smoking Cessation Service.

Currently pharmacy owners must claim via the Manage Your Service (MYS) portal by the 5th day of the following month, in which the service was provided. Late claims will only be accepted if made within three months of the date by which the claim should have been submitted; later claims will not be accepted, even if this is outside the control of the pharmacy owner, for example, if an IT issue has prevented them from making a claim.

Community Pharmacy England has long been fighting for a fairer system to ensure pharmacy owners are paid for service delivery when due to IT issues, outside of their control, they have not been able to claim payments. The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have now agreed that this should be addressed and pharmacy owners will have an additional twelve months (from the date by which the claim should have been submitted) to claim payment. This is subject to the NHSBSA receiving evidence of the IT issue and if investigation finds that the evidence demonstrates that the IT issue is outside of the control of the pharmacy owner and therefore delayed the claim submission.

This new provision will be added to Part VIC of the February 2025 Drug Tariff.

De-registration from the above Advanced services
A clarification will also be added to Part VIC of the February Drug Tariff with regards to de-registration from the above four Advanced services. If a pharmacy owner de-registers from providing one of the above Advanced services on the MYS portal, they will not be able to re-register for that service for a period of four months from the final day of their 30 day’s notice.