Contract changes: Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways caps published for April 2025

The Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways band assignments and monthly caps for April 2025 have been published on the NHSBSA website.

The list published by NHSBSA indicates the band assignment and monthly cap for each pharmacy by ODS code.

If a pharmacy ODS is not included in the list, the pharmacy is automatically considered to be in Band 1 (the lowest band).

Caps on the number of consultations that can be delivered per month are based on actual delivery of Pharmacy First (clinical pathways). The mechanism for setting caps for Pharmacy First takes into account ‘underspend’ i.e. where caps are not met from earlier in the year and rolls this into allowances for later months. This mechanism meant that as the 2024/25 year progressed, more and more under delivered volume was rolled into caps, and these grew significantly.

However, as the under delivered volume for 2024/25 cannot roll into 2025/26 (HM Treasury rules do not allow transfer of unspent money from one financial year to the next), there is effectively a ‘reset’ of the system. The caps set from April 2025 are based on a target volume for 2025/26, but do not allow any under delivered allocations from 2024/25 to roll over.

As we progress through 2025/26, any under delivered volume will again be rolled over and used to increase allocations later in the year; depending on consultation numbers we may therefore again see the caps become higher later in the year.