The points-based quality payments scheme was introduced alongside the pharmacy funding cuts in England in December 2016, offering pharmacies a maximum of £6,400 for meeting certain requirements, such as healthy living pharmacy accreditation.

To be able to meet these requirements, pharmacies must first pass all five gateway criteria, one of which is to have their NHS.uk website entry up to date, covering three sections – their opening times, facilities and services.

A total of 4,893 pharmacies have still not passed this criteria ahead of the February 15 review date, according to the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee’s (PSNC) analysis of NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) data, published last week (January 18). 

Out of these pharmacies, 2,650 have not updated or validated any of the three sections, PSNC said.

A further 2,207 pharmacies have only updated or validated one or two NHS.uk sections, while another 36 have updated all three sections, but not passed the gateway criterion, because they do not list whether they offer medicines use reviews or the new medicine service on their online profile, PSNC continued.

The negotiator urged contractors to check on the NHS BSA report whether their pharmacy has met the criteria.