Short claim period for Pharmacy First raised in Parliament

MPs have raised pharmacy owners’ concerns about the shortening of the Pharmacy First payment claim window in Parliament.

Community Pharmacy England has issued the following statement in response.

Our Director, Legal, Gordon Hockey, said:

“The claim period for pharmacy services, particularly Pharmacy First, is unnecessarily short, and the impact where pharmacies miss these deadlines is punitive. Community pharmacies must be paid for all work they undertake for the NHS and for patients. We are arguing that DHSC and NHS England should make retrospective payments to any pharmacies who missed Pharmacy First claim deadlines, or had other issues with making claims, since the one-month claim period was introduced last summer. We will also continue to push DHSC and NHS England to agree that across all services, pharmacies should have reasonable windows of time in which to claim for work done for the NHS, with fair systems in place to allow for corrected and discretionary payment options where deadlines are missed or other issues occur.”