One week to go until planned ‘go-live’ for PCS and NMS changes (updated 23rd Oct)

Next Wednesday (29th October 2025), is the planned ‘go live’ date for the expansion of the Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) and the New Medicine Service (NMS).

NHS England will confirm ahead of this date whether the necessary changes have been made to IT systems to allow the changes to commence from this date.

Ahead of confirmation of the ‘go live’ date, below is a reminder of the changes that are planned to happen to both services from this date.

Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS)

The main changes to the PCS are the:

• Addition of oral emergency contraception to the service;
• Ability of pharmacy technicians to provide the service; and
• Addition of drospirenone within the list of contraceptives which can be supplied.

Draft versions of the updated service documents have been available on the NHSBSA website since June to provide advance notice of the changes to the service for pharmacy owners and their teams.

On Monday, NHS England published the final service documents on their website, to again provide advance notice ahead of the service being expanded.

A Community Pharmacy England webinar was held earlier this month where the service changes were explained; an on-demand version of the webinar is now available to watch.

Resources have been updated on our PCS webpage to support pharmacy owners and their teams to provide and promote the expanded service. A new Briefing on what’s changing is also available.

New Medicine Service (NMS)

The main changes to the NMS are:

• It will expand to include depression as an eligible therapeutic area. This is reflected in the updated service specification and NMS Eligible Drug List.
• Wording in the service specification regarding the timing of Intervention and Follow up consultations has also been amended, so the Intervention consultation is provided between 7-14 days after recruitment and the Follow up consultation is between 14-21 days after the Intervention consultation. The previous wording said consultations would ‘typically take place between those time periods’. There is, however, also an ability for the pharmacist to agree consultations outside those periods on an exceptional basis, e.g. if a patient is on holiday.
• The service specification has been amended to include the clarification on subcontracting of the service not being allowed, which was highlighted to all pharmacy owners at the time of the CPCF settlement announcement in March.

Draft versions of the updated service documents have been available on the NHSBSA website since August to provide advance notice of the changes to the service for pharmacy owners and their teams. A final version of the service specification has now been published on the NHS website to again provide advance notice ahead of the service being expanded.

Frequently Asked Questions on NMS subcontracting are available on our website.

Actions for pharmacy owners and their teams

In relation to any of the above services the pharmacy owner provides, they should review the revised service documentation, if they have not already done so.

Pharmacy owners should also ensure that all pharmacy staff who will provide the amended services have read the documentation linked to above, are aware of the changes and will ensure they are competent to provide the updated services from the relevant commencement date.

There is no mandatory training related to the addition of depression to NMS, but a related training programme on consulting with people with mental health problems is included in the Pharmacy Quality Scheme for 2025/26.