Community Pharmacy Assurance Framework (CPAF) screening questionnaire 2025/26
Over 85% of community pharmacy owners are still yet to complete the 2025/26 Community Pharmacy Assurance Framework (CPAF) screening questionnaire. We encourage pharmacy owners who have not yet responded to the questionnaire to ensure they do so by Thursday, 31st July 2025.
As a result of NHS regulations introduced at the end of 2020, completion of CPAF is now a requirement of the Terms of Service. Therefore, pharmacy owners must complete the screening questionnaire and, if required, the full CPAF questionnaire.
Community Pharmacy England recommends that pharmacy owners complete the questionnaire in good time before the deadline. It should only take approximately 10-20 minutes to complete.
The short screening questionnaire consists of 10 questions. Pharmacy owners who use the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) Manage Your Service (MYS) portal will be required to complete the questionnaire on the portal. Those who are not yet signed up for MYS will be able to complete the questionnaire online.
The questions are available on the NHSBSA website.
We have had a number of queries relating to Question 11 of the screening questionnaire, regarding safeguarding training. To clarify:
- Pharmacy owners are reminded that for the purposes of CPAF and the Terms of Service, all pharmacy professionals need to have completed level 2 safeguarding training within the last two years.
- Level 3 safeguarding training counts as additional training – for example, some services, such as the contraception service, require level 3.
- Even if the professional has completed level 3 training, they still need to refresh their level 2 safeguarding training every two years.
Once the screening questionnaires have been completed, NHS England will then select a small number of pharmacies for a monitoring visit and/or to complete the full CPAF questionnaire.
Community pharmacies should receive information and instructions on how to complete the screening questionnaire either via email from the NHSBSA or from their own Head Office. Pharmacy owners are advised to contact NHSBSA by emailing pharmacysupport@nhsbsa.nhs.uk if they have not received details of the questionnaire, or if they have any problems or queries completing the questionnaire.