Community Pharmacy England (CPE) this week (September 1) revealed timings for the start of agreed changes to the 2025/26 pharmacy contract, including the free morning-after pill rollout, adding antidepressants to the new medicine service (NMS) and changes to Pharmacy First.
The upcoming changes to the three services were announced in March as part of the new funding deal - which also saw a double-digit increase in cash for England’s community pharmacies.
Read more: Pharmacies must ‘promote’ PF service via national campaign
CPE set out that:
- New clinical pathways and patient group directions (PGDs) for the Pharmacy First service are due to launch on October 1
- The rollout of free oral emergency contraception (EC) in pharmacies is due to launch on October 29
- The expansion of the NMS to include depression is due to launch on October 29
But the pharmacy negotiator said that the launch dates for these “three key elements” are “provisional” and that NHSE will confirm “commencement dates nearer the time”.
This is “subject to receiving confirmation that the necessary changes to the clinical IT systems will be made on schedule”, it added.
Emergency contraception
The negotiator revealed the provisional start date of October 29 for the expansion of the pharmacy contraception service (PCS) to include the provision of oral EC.
It said that the service will be updated “to allow pharmacy technicians to provide the service” from the same day, with the changes reflected in the service specification, PGDs and consultation records provided by IT system suppliers.
Read more: Pharmacies to offer free morning-after pill from October
“Further minor changes” to the PGDs will be published “in draft form” on the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) website and on NHSE’s website “on the commencement date”, CPE added.
It said contractors currently registered to provide the service who “intend to continue” do not need to take any action, but that registered pharmacy owners who “do not wish to provide oral EC” must “de-register” via the NHSBSA’s manage your service (MYS) portal by September 29.
But it warned that de-registering from the service after August 31 will make contractors “unable to fulfil the gateway criteria” for the 2025/26 Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) and therefore “any aspiration payments they have already received will be re-claimed…at a future date”.
Read more: Contract timeline at a glance: What is happening when?
And it reiterated that pharmacies must be signed up “to provide both the hypertension case-finding service (HCFS) - except distance selling pharmacies (DSPs) - and PCS” to receive the Pharmacy First clinical pathways monthly payment under “bundling” rules that came into force in June.
Pharmacy owners “currently providing a locally commissioned EC service” should check how the changes will affect this, CPE said, adding that their local pharmaceutical committee (LPC) or the service commissioner “will likely be able to provide” information.
Antidepressants
The expansion of the NMS to “include depression as an eligible therapeutic area” will also take effect from October 29, CPE said, with the change to be “reflected in the updated service specification and NMS eligible drug list”.
It added that following a review of this list, “discontinued medicines, hospital specialist-only initiated medicines and medication with very low levels of prescribing in the community” have been removed.
Read more: Antidepressants added to NMS from October
And “newer medicines that have been approved for each condition since the last review” have been added, it said.
“We do not expect the changes to the list will adversely impact on the number of opportunities for pharmacy owners to offer the service to patients,” CPE stressed.
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Regarding service specification changes, it said that:
- The “majority” of updates are additions of “standard wording” such as on post-payment verification and record keeping
- An amendment clarifies that sub-contracting of the service is “not allowed”
- The wording now specifies that “intervention” consultations are provided 7-14 days after recruitment and “follow-up” consultations are 14-21 days after that, unless there is an “exceptional” circumstance such as a patient being on holiday
And CPE added that contractors using an IT system for NMS clinical records “should look out for communications” from their supplier or “discuss” these changes with them and “confirm that their IT system will be updated to fully support service provision” from October 29.
Pharmacy First clinical pathways
Finally, CPE said that the use of new clinical pathways and PGDs for the Pharmacy First service is set to commence on October 1.
These were revised following a “clinical review of the clinical pathways conducted by NHSE with input from clinical experts and frontline community pharmacists”, it added.
“IT system suppliers are planning to amend their existing systems” to incorporate the service updates the night before launch, CPE said.
Read more: Pharmacy First under ‘evaluation’ as DH expects to ‘fully utilise’ funds
It urged contractors to ensure that all staff providing the services have read the new documents, are “aware of the changes and will ensure they are competent to provide the updated services” from the start dates.
In June, pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock confirmed there will be a three-year evaluation of Pharmacy First after setting out that he expects to “fully” utilise the funding allocated to the service for 2025/26.
Meanwhile, pharmacies have been tasked with promoting the Pharmacy First service to the public as their first national campaign topic under this year’s contract.
