Reminder: Pharmacy First bundling requirement from 1st June
Ahead of 1st June 2025, pharmacy owners are reminded of the changes to the bundling requirements for Pharmacy First which will impact on whether they are entitled to a monthly fixed payment for the service.
From 1st June 2025, pharmacy owners must be registered and able to deliver the Hypertension Case Finding Service*, the Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) and the Pharmacy First service, in addition to delivering the minimum number of clinical pathway consultations (see below) to achieve the fixed payment.
If pharmacy owners have not yet signed up to the Hypertension Case Finding Service and/or the PCS, further information on both services can be found on the following pages on our website:
Read our FAQs on the bundling requirements
Changes to the minimum activity requirement from June 2025
In addition to the above, from June 2025 a new fixed payment of £500 will be made to those pharmacy owners delivering a minimum of 20 to 29 clinical pathway consultations in a month, with the £1,000 maximum fixed payment for those who deliver the minimum of 30 or more consultations. As highlighted above, this payment will be made to those registered and able to deliver the Hypertension Case Finding Service*, the PCS and Pharmacy First service from 1st June 2025.
To enable the above variable payment, the claim window for Pharmacy First will be reduced to one month from June 2025. This means, for example, for June 2025, claims must be made on MYS by the last day of July 2025.
The recent change to allow an additional twelve months to claim payment, where an issue with IT systems prevented the submission of a claim, will remain.
Further changes to the bundling requirements
Pharmacy owners should be aware of additional requirements coming in later in 2025/26 to be eligible for the monthly payment for Pharmacy First:
- From October 2025, this requirement will increase to require pharmacy owners to deliver one ABPM consultation per month, in addition to meeting the above requirements; and
- From March 2026, this requirement will increase to pharmacy owners having to provide a specified number (on which Community Pharmacy England will be consulted) of PCS consultations (including oral Emergency Contraception consultations), in addition to meeting the above requirements.
*Distance selling pharmacies are exempt from the requirement of being registered and able to provide the Hypertension Case-Finding Service.
