New funding agreement: global sum up £314m
The one-year settlement will require pharmacists to do "more work for the same levels of funding", says PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe
PSNC has confirmed that the global sum for the long-awaited funding agreement has risen £314 million to £2.8 billion, up 13 per cent from £2.486bn. The funding for 2014-15 will comprise £2bn for fees and allowances and £800m in retained purchase profits, the negotiator announced today (September 22). The latter element, up from the £500m agreed in the 2005 contract, will be delivered by increasing category M prices £10m per month from October. This will result in an average price increase across all items of around 12 pence, PSNC said. Practice payments will be slashed by a quarter from November, down 17p from 66p. This would reduce the average contractor's income by £870 for the second half of 2014-15 when combined with the category M changes, the negotiator said. This drop in payments was necessary to ensure the £2bn in fees and allowances was deliverable, accommodate increases in dispensing volume and take into account the new medicine service (NMS), which will now be paid out of the core funding, the negotiating body said. PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe described the one-year settlement as an "important milestone" that recognised the "financial squeeze" across the NHS. Funding negotiations had been "extremely lengthy and complex", but Ms Sharpe said she believed NHS England and PSNC had arrived at a "fair settlement". Pharmacists will be required to deliver 70 per cent of their medicine use reviews (MURs) to patients within target groups, an increase from 50 per cent. A new target group of patients at risk of cardiovascular disease who have been prescribed four or more medicines had been added, although the maximum number of paid MURs would remain at 400, PSNC said. As part of the settlement, which PSNC had agreed "unanimously", pharmacies will be required to identify suitable patients for the repeat dispensing service and notify prescribers. To help NHS England increase the number of incidents reported to the National Reporting and Learning Service (NRLS), pharmacists will also be expected to report all events which could lead to patient harm and include the name of the pharmacy where they occurred. "A tough settlement" Ms Sharpe said the 13 per cent increase in the global sum to £2.8bn, which C+D reported last week, was recognition that the system that allowed pharmacies to retain additional purchase margins above the agreed limit of £500m a year had now ended. "We have been warning contractors to expect a tough settlement, one that represented more work for the same levels of funding. In common with the rest of the NHS, pharmacies have been required to find savings and this settlement reflects that policy," she said. PSNC was "very keen" to reach a settlement for 2015-16 before April next year, Ms Sharpe added. The sector has been waiting for a funding agreement since interim arrangements were introduced in October 2012. In February of last year, PSNC told pharmacists they could expect a new funding agreement before the end of last summer. By June it had pushed the deadline back to autumn.
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