The government cannot commit to a multi-year funding settlement for pharmacy until a new NHS budget is agreed, Earl Howe has said in an exclusive interview.

People "regularly" raised the possibility of a multi-year settlement with the government's contract negotiating team, but it could not give a "definite answer" about longer term funding yet, the pharmacy minister told C+D at the Conservative party conference last week (September 29).

The new funding settlement attracted criticism from pharmacy leaders and politicians last month for only lasting until April 2015, but Earl Howe stressed that a longer term settlement could not be considered until overall funding for the Department of Health had been agreed.

"The problem is until we know what the funding is for the whole NHS, we don't know what we've got to play with. If we had that element of certainty we might be in a better position to look at a multi-year contract for pharmacy," he added.

PSNC pledged to secure a multi-year funding agreement in 2013, but chief executive Sue Sharpe admitted last month that she was unsure whether NHS England would ever agree to a multi-year settlement. The sector had to wait two years for the current funding settlement and PSNC hoped that negotiations for the 2015-16 contract would "not be so lengthy", she said.

Following the announcement of the settlement, shadow pharmacy minister Jamie Reed MP told C+D that a "long-lasting" pharmacy funding settlement was needed to ensure stability for the sector.

	How would a multi-year funding settlement affect your pharmacy?