DHSC Consultation on the Disclosure Regulations
The Department of Health and Social Care launched a public consultation on proposed amendments to the Health Service Products (Provision and Disclosure of Information) Regulations.
The Regulations, introduced in 2018, enable the Department to collect information on the costs of medicines, appliances, and borderline substances to be dispensed for the NHS. The key impact on pharmacy owners was that it provided the Department with a stronger legal basis for the Margin survey. Community Pharmacy England’s briefing on the current Regulations is Briefing 034/18: Information and disclosure regulations
The consultation says that the proposed amendments should:
- ensure that reimbursement arrangements are more reflective of market conditions and therefore ensure fairer reimbursement for pharmacy owners.
- improve DHSC’s ability to mitigate supply issues more cost-effectively, by providing it with a more complete market view of health service products supply.
- improve suppliers’ compliance with the regulations by enabling DHSC to update the compliance regime, ultimately supporting better patient access to medicines, both of which represent taxpayer value for money.
and more specifically, they will, for example:
- Assist in the pricing of products of Category H, this category is being introduced in March 2026.
- Give the Department a more complete view of national medicine supply to help prevent and mitigate medicine shortages.
- Require notification for all new products being put on the mark.et and updates to pack sizes and prices to ensure that the dm+d can be populated with a reimbursement price.
- Introduce provisions to require product data returns from hubs to inform reimbursement prices.
- Ensure all situations that could lead to a medicine supply shortage in the market are reported.
CPE will assess the potential impact of the proposals on the community pharmacy sector and respond accordingly to the consultation.
The DHSC consultation closes on 5 May 2026.
