NHS England has revealed it will “amend the core practice contract to require practices to have a dedicated, monitored email address” for pharmacy communications as part of the 2026/27 GP contract.
Announced on February 24 and due to be implemented on April 1, NHSE national director for primary care Dr Amanda Doyle explained in a letter that the email address will be used to receive “information from community pharmacies in the event that GP Connect is unavailable”.
It is also intended to be used for “new or emerging pharmacy activity that is not yet supported through GP Connect”, such as community pharmacy independent prescribing, she said, stressing it must always be “kept up to date”.
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Dr Doyle also explained that the 2026/27 contract will “amend the core practice contract to expand the provisions on nominated dispensers, requiring practices to reconfirm the nominated pharmacy whenever a new prescription – not a repeat prescription – is issued”.
Doctors must also “ensure that referrals and triage tools used for community pharmacy clinical services offer patients a full choice of providers”, she said.
“We expect in practice that most practices do this already,” she added, noting that this “should not add additional burden to appointments”.
“Disappointing”
The 2026/27 deal also lays out plans for investment in the GP contract to “increase by £485 million”, bringing the “combined total estimated contract value” to £13,863 million – a 1.4% real terms uplift, the letter said.
In response to the GP contract, National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chief executive Henry Gregg said that “it’s disappointing to see a formal contract offer announced for GP colleagues before the government has even begun consultations for community pharmacies”.
“Pharmacies are still left in the dark as to how they will meet looming cost increases being imposed on them [and] as equal members of the primary care family, they need certainty so they can plan and invest for the year ahead to deliver vital services for their patients.”
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It comes after GPs were ordered to turn on GP connect “by no later than October 1 2025” as part of their 2025/26 contract to allow community pharmacies to “send consultations into the GP practice workflow”.
But the British Medical Association (BMA) revealed in May that it was “in further discussions” about this matter with NHSE amid concerns that GPs will be “liable” for information entered into patient records by pharmacies.
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Meanwhile, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) revealed in November that it had received “a number of concerns” about electronic prescription service (EPS) pharmacy “nominations and re-nominations without patient consent”.
And Titan PMR’s chief executive launched a petition in December to “ban” technology that allows pharmacies to “auto renominate EPS patients in bulk”.
