PSNC is optimistic that England's new medicine service (NMS) will be extended beyond September, despite an evaluation of the service being delayed until the end of the year, chief executive Sue Sharpe has said.

The Department of Health was due to base its decision on the future of the NMS on an independent report it has commissioned, which is due to be published in September. But the decision would now have to be made separately, Ms Sharpe revealed at the Sigma conference in Windsor last week (May 17).

"We need to try hard to ensure the NMS is commissioned until the results of the evaluation are known" Sue Sharpe, PSNC

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Ms Sharpe said she was optimistic that the service would be extended because of evidence published by PSNC last year, which showed 32 per cent of non-adherent patients became adherent to their medication following an NMS intervention. "I think we need to try hard to ensure that it is commissioned until the results of that [independent] evaluation are known, because I think to lose it and then try to get it back again is going to be much more challenging," she told delegates.

If the NMS was decommissioned, PSNC's back-up plan was to get the service recommissioned when the DH-commissioned report was published by the University of Nottingham at the end of the year, Ms Sharpe added.

NHS England confirmed that the report would not be published until "at least" September.

In March, PSNC announced that the government had put up £20 million to extend the NMS for six months. The extension means that pharmacists can recruit patients until September 30 and will be paid even if the service is completed in October or November.

Last week, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society said the NMS should be offered to all patients with long-term conditions.