The Scottish government “has informed” Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) that pharmacies in the country will receive a global sum of £9.31 million for 2025/26 – a 4% uplift, the negotiator said.
The funding will be “directly used to support additional costs being borne by the network such as national insurance impacts”, it added.
Read more: BREAKING: CPS reveals ‘first part’ of Scots funding deal
This is in addition to the “first part” of the 2025/26 funding package for Scottish pharmacies announced last month, which included a rise in guaranteed minimum reimbursement from £110m to £120m.
It also included the “mapping of money from the Drug Tariff to support key funding lines” to the value of £20m, CPS said.
“Falls short”
But the negotiator warned that although it appreciates the Scottish government’s “fiscal constraints”, the 4% uplift “is not enough to cover the rising operating costs being faced by the pharmacy network”.
CPS chief executive Matt Barclay said that the body supports the “direction of travel” towards an “enhanced role for primary care and community pharmacy as part of wider health service restructuring and refocus”.
“However, community pharmacies need to be adequately resourced to support our shared ambitions and unfortunately this settlement currently falls short of our requirements,” he added.
Read more: Hope for 2025/26 funding deal by April, says CPS
Last month, CPS said that it made a “joint decision” with the government to “begin negotiations with the initial focus on reimbursement arrangements…to prevent a delay on this part of the deal while further discussions continue”.
It added that delivery of the guaranteed minimum income will be “closely monitored monthly” and “further action to support contractor cashflow will be considered if appropriate”.
The Scottish government has also set out that it will “further expand” the country’s Pharmacy First service to cover more clinical conditions, with the first expansion “by November 2025”.
