Community Pharmacy England (CPE) chief executive Janet Morrison has said that the sector is facing “a very gloomy outlook” for the next pharmacy funding deal.
Speaking at the Pharmacy Show in Birmingham on Sunday (October 12), she said that conversations with other primary care bodies have made it clear that they are all “getting a very gloomy outlook about what resources are going to be available”.
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“We know that it is going to be very tough across the board”, Morrison told delegates.
But she stressed that the negotiator is “[continuing] to explore” what issues the sector will face “in terms of funding scenarios” and what CPE “can negotiate in a difficult environment”.
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According to Morrison, pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock was also “very clear about the gloomy outlook” for the sector during a discussion they had at last month’s Labour Party conference.
“We had an honest conversation about the difficult choices that could be involved in a poor settlement,” she said.
“Big decisions”
Morrison also informed delegates that it is likely negotiations for the 2026/27 contract won’t begin before next month.
“When we completed our last negotiations, the government told us it intended to start negotiations in September,” she said.
“[But] that month has come and gone – not to enormous surprise – because it’s clear that there are very big decisions being made about how to allocate the funding that [the government] has got,” she added.
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The “latest indication” is that CPE “won’t be starting negotiations before November”, she told delegates.
It comes after Morrison said in March that she “reluctantly accepted the final offer” of the long-awaited funding deal, stressing that it is “not enough” to stabilise the sector.
Meanwhile, Day Lewis executive director Sam Patel told delegates at the Pharmacy Show that the next pharmacy funding contract does not need to be overhauled but instead simply “tweaked”.
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He argued that he “[doesn’t] believe the answer is suddenly to put a line through” the contract as it currently stands.
And a panel at the conference discussed whether the NHS should “go down the route” of a “tiered” funding system for pharmacy.
The NPA also said that the health secretary rejected the first community pharmacy contract offer during negotiations as it was “not good enough”, but the government has denied this claim.
