Service fee advances

Community Pharmacy England recently announced that consultation fees for the Hypertension Case-Finding Service (HCFS) and the Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) are to be included in the advance payments issued to pharmacy owners by the NHS Business Services Authority. The first service fee advance was received on 12 May (for activity completed in April 2025) and this will be recovered on 1 July when the reconciliation payment is received for April.

The value of the ‘Service fee advance’ displayed on the payment schedule is calculated based on the activity declared via the Manage Your Service (MYS) portal. Pharmacy owners will receive service fee advances on the same day as the advance payment for dispensed prescriptions, provided the declaration is submitted within the usual claiming deadlines. Please note: Advance payments for further services will be included in this ‘Service fee advance’ as NHSBSA’s pricing systems continue to be developed.

The service fee advance payment is then recovered the following month – similar to the recovery of advances paid for prescriptions. This value will appear in the Schedule of Payments as ‘Recovery of service fee advance’. For example, for consultations provided in July 2025, the service fee advance will be paid on 11 August 2025 and recovered when the reconciliation payment is received on 1 October 2025 as per the payment timetable for 2025. Pharmacy owners will have noticed a ‘Recovery of service fee advance’ under the ‘Summary of Payment Amounts’ section of their latest schedule.

The image below shows how these values are reflected in the Schedule of Payments:

The itemisation of the amounts being paid for these two services within the dispensing month has also been moved from the ‘Details of Other Amounts Authorised’ section into the main ‘Prescription Fees’ section of the Schedule of Payments. The reimbursement for any items supplied under the PCS is factored into the calculation for the main advance payment itself. Details of the drug costs, discount applied, and VAT elements for the PCS are set out in the detailed tables on page four of the Schedule of Payments (there being no drug reimbursement as part of the HCFS).

For more information, please see our Monthly payments page and our Understanding your FP34 Schedule of Payments page.

For more information on monthly payments, please visit NHSBSA’s Payment Information page.