Eligible price concessions to roll over from May 2023
As part of the Year 4 & 5 funding settlement for community pharmacy, it was agreed that an urgent review of the price concession setting system would take place. Since this announcement, Community Pharmacy England has been working with Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to determine improvements to the price concession system.
As part of a package of measures developed to improve the price concession system, the DHSC has implemented a process to roll over certain concessionary prices to the following month. From May 2023, the roll over process will apply to any products where agreement is reached on the final prices granted by DHSC for any price concession requests submitted late in the month (on or after the 23rd of the month) by Community Pharmacy England.
The following price concessions granted in May 2023 have rolled over to June 2023:
| Drug | Pack Size | Price concession |
| Chloramphenicol 0.5% eye drops | 10 | £9.68 |
| Chlorphenamine 2mg/5ml oral solution sugar free | 150 | £3.04 |
| Clotrimazole 500mg pessary and Clotrimazole 2% cream | 1 | £10.35 |
| Lansoprazole 30mg orodispersible tablets | 28 | £5.52 |
| Methylphenidate 10mg tablets | 30 | £3.08 |
| Venlafaxine 150mg modified-release capsules | 28 | £4.98 |
| Venlafaxine 150mg modified-release tablets | 30 | £4.85 |
| Venlafaxine 75mg modified-release tablets | 30 | £2.95 |
Pharmacy owners (our members) will be able to see the lines that have rolled over on our price concessions page here. Please note any rolled over prices can be adjusted upwards if we receive reports from our members to indicate suppliers’ selling prices have increased. The review can be requested at any point during the month.
One of the earlier changes agreed between Community Pharmacy England and DHSC was that all products granted a concessionary price will be classified as ‘Discount Not Deducted’ for the month(s) in which they are on concession. From 1 April 2023, a new Group Items category has been added to Part II of the Drug Tariff for ‘Drugs for which discount is not deducted’.
A further solution recently announced by DHSC to help improve current the price concession system includes a ‘retrospective increased payment’ which may apply, when appropriate. Further information regarding this concession ‘top-up’ mechanism will be issued once details are finalised with DHSC.
We are continuing to seek further improvements to the price concession system
