Explained: Medicines Supply and Price Concessions Process

Community Pharmacy England has released a set of resources on the price concessions system to further explain how this works and highlight some of our work in this area.

The many challenges surrounding medicines supply and pricing have intensified, putting considerable pressure on community pharmacy owners and their teams. The disruption often causes problems in both accessing medicines and procuring them at or below the listed Drug Tariff prices.

In our recent sector poll, community pharmacy owners echoed the findings from our earlier Pressures Survey, rating medicine market instability as their top concern when asked about the pressures they face.

To support pharmacy owners, we have been working to develop a series of guidance materials. This began with our recent Medicines Supply and Concessions Briefing Webinar, which provided an overview of the current concessions system and provided a platform for pharmacy owners to express their concerns to Committee Members and our Funding and Reimbursement Team.

Price Concession Infographics

Building on the recent briefing webinar, we have released three infographics as an additional set of resources for pharmacy owners. These aim to clarify:

• The Price Concession Application Process – The journey from pharmacy reporting of medicines unavailable to purchase at or below the listed Drug Tariff prices to publication of final prices determined by DHSC.
• The Monthly Concessions Cycle – A breakdown of the typical monthly process involved in setting price concessions.
• An overview of the work we do as part of the price concessions process.

These infographics are available on our dedicated webpage for medicines supply and price concessions.

Commenting on this, Suraj Shah, Drug Tariff and Reimbursement Manager at Community Pharmacy England, said:

“Pharmacy owners face ongoing challenges with medicine supply and pricing, which is exhausting, wasting their valuable time and putting unacceptable pressures on finances. We are continuing to press for improvements via all mechanisms that we can.

Our Dispensing and Supply team works hard on your behalf each month to comb through tens of thousands of reports for hundreds of lines unavailable to purchase at or below the Tariff price to negotiate a concessionary price with DHSC. However, it is ultimately DHSC that sets the price based on the data they’ve gathered. The current system is very complex and we are always urging the Government and the NHS to intervene and improve it. The recent price concessions review has yielded improvements, and we continue to push for more changes.”

If you have questions regarding price concessions, medicines supply, or any of these resources, please contact us via: ds.team@cpe.org.uk