Retrospective concession top-up scheme to launch in April
Pharmacies that dispensed items found to have had a concession price that was too low will be eligible for automatic top-up payments from April, the NHSBSA has revealed.
Pharmacies that received an “inappropriately low” reimbursement for drugs on concession will receive a quarterly top-up payment, the pharmacy negotiator said yesterday (March 11).
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) announced on Friday (March 8) that the retrospective top-up payments will apply to concessionary prices that were granted three quarters before the current quarter.
The first top-up will occur in April to cover the period of April to September 2023, with payment in July, it said.
Read more: Paydens ‘focused’ on meeting sector challenges amid £6m loss in 2023
The NHSBSA and CPE said that the payments will be levied automatically to all pharmacies that had dispensed the affected items and that the top-up will depend on the payment a contractor had initially received for the monthly item volume.
If the margin survey of independent pharmacies shows that the contractor received a “significant underpayment” compared to the average prices that contractors paid to suppliers, then the contractor will receive an automatic top-up payment, they added.
“Package of measures”
Community Pharmacy England (CPE) yesterday said that it had been developing "a package of measures to improve the price concession system" alongside the Department of Health and Social Care (DH).
The negotiator said that the three-quarter “lag” was a consequence of the time needed to complete “data collection, processing and analysis” on concession prices.
CPE added that the drug tariff will include a new section listing the items eligible for top-up payments.
Read more: ‘We have to be realistic’: Government could impose new contract, CPE warns
It comes as C+D yesterday reported that Paydens Pharmacy’s latest financial documents had revealed a sudden drop in earnings “directly caused by the flat rate of pharmacy funding”.
Paydens Pharmacy managing director Alexander Pay told C+D that “the core contract needs a significant and immediate injection of funding”.
Read more: PSNC: Review of price concessions ‘the priority’ for pharmacy contractors
And last month, CPE chief executive Janet Morrison announced that negotiations for the 2024/25 “one-year funding settlement” had begun, and that the negotiator’s “key asks” for the DH and the NHS included fixing the price concession system.
The DH committed to reviewing the price concession system as part of negotiations on the five-year pharmacy contract’s year 4 and year 5 settlement in September 2022.
