Our CEO updates on the negotiations

Understandably the sector is eagerly awaiting an update on the progress of the negotiations. As many in the sector will know, Community Pharmacy England is bound by Government confidentiality protocols.

Our CEO has released a statement today to explain that the process remains on track as we’re presently working at pace with key stakeholders from the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Our Chief Executive Janet Morrison said:

“We are working at pace in negotiations with DHSC and NHSE. The process remains on track with the Government’s original timescale – i.e. aiming for agreement in July, with cross-government clearance later in July, and implementation from July through to September.

There are a number of workstreams at play: we are involved in working groups on service expansion of Hypertension Case-Finding and the Pharmacy Contraception Scheme and service design for the Common Conditions Service; and are in in-depth negotiations on Payment models.  These discussions critically look at the balance between funding core capacity and activity payments, how the funding streams will be distributed and how we will measure delivery and impact.

NHSE has been leading on the development of the PGD pathways for each of the 7 conditions, with external medical, pharmacy and other experts feeding into the process – pharmacy owners from the Community Pharmacy England Committee have also been involved but the discussions are clinically led to ensure they comply with NICE principles and concur with Antimicrobial Stewardship policy.

We have also been represented on the Digital infrastructure working group led by NHSE with system suppliers working on interoperability of GP and Pharmacy systems to support pathways for the Common Conditions Service – these are essential to the service’s start date.

The negotiations are complex and critical since we hope they will have implications for the foundations of the next contractual framework so it’s vital that we approach them with rigour and aim to future proof payment structures.  We are working at pace but the process and timing of negotiations are not in our gift – they involve a number of stakeholders across government and NHSE.”