Pharmacists will be paid for all the patients they recruit this month for England's new medicine service (NMS), the government has confirmed, despite ongoing uncertainty over the service's future.

The Department of Health (DH) has not decided whether to recommission the NMS, despite agreed funding coming to an end in three weeks.

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	However, it told C+D this week that it would be paying pharmacists for patients recruited up until March 31, even if the service is completed beyond that date.

"The new medicine service will run until March 31 and pharmacists should continue to offer the service to appropriate patients," a spokesperson said yesterday. "Pharmacies will receive payment for patients recruited up until March 31, even if it means the service is completed in April or May." 

However the DH would still not release details of what would happen beyond March, reiterating that a decision would be made "shortly".

Pharmacists lambasted the uncertainty over the future of the national advanced service last month, as the DH told C+D it could not commit to a timeframe for an announcement or give any indication over the service's future. And it would not reveal what information it was using to make its decision or whether it had enough to do so – saying only that it was using information from a "range of sources".

And this week, North-East London LPC secretary Hemant Patel renewed his calls for more clarity, saying it was "insulting" that pharmacists were not told about the service's future.

Pharmacists had put a lot of time and energy into the service, he said, and contractors needed to plan their business and cashflow. "It is a business planning issue as well as a morale issue," he said.

The service was "the most effective health care intervention in NHS primary care," he argued. "Certainly from a pharmacy point of view it is saving money, it is saving lives, it is reducing hospital admissions and yet pharmacy is being treated like a doormat," Mr Patel added.

Pharmacist Amish Patel of Hodgson Pharmacy, Longfield, in Kent agreed that more information was needed. "I would like to know so I can tell my staff and tell my patients," he told C+D. "I don't want to come in on April 1 and everything be in limbo."

PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe, who told C+D last month that PSNC was continuing to push the DH for a decision, said yesterday that its discussions with the government had confirmed pharmacies could continue to recruit eligible patients into the service during March and would be paid for completed services.

Do you think the DH's short-term commitment to the NMS is an indication that the service will be recommissioned? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook