Almost 140 community pharmacies in the capital – 8% of the total number – are owed pre-reg payments from the provider, according to a survey by local pharmaceutical committee (LPC) consortium, Pharmacy London.

A spokesperson for NHS England’s London regional team told C+D on Friday (March 10) that as a result, NHS England has appointed an "additional officer" to "ensure all [Capita] payment issues are resolved as quickly as possible". 

"We are working with all London LPCs on this matter," they added.

C+D revealed last week (March 8) that Capita owes pharmacy group Avicenna nearly £60,000 in pre-reg fees. At the time, the service supplier denied that payment delays were widespread and only admitted to experiencing “some isolated issues”.

Contractor woes

The scale of the problem was brought to the attention of NHS England by Rekha Shah, the CEO of Pharmacy London, which represents all but one of the capital’s LPCs.
 
Ms Shah surveyed her organisation’s members after receiving reports from contractors in the capital.
 
All of the “nearly 140” respondents were due payments, she told C+D, “and not by just one month or two months – we’re talking about massive [time periods]", she said.
 
While some payments are "outstanding from even before Capita" took over responsibility for the payments, Ms Shah’s data – which she passed to NHS England – showed that some pharmacy groups were owed as much as £30,000.

“Because of the imminent pharmacy cuts … we realised this was going to cause a bit of a cashflow issue for some of these guys,” she said.

Further issues identified

Ms Shah said Capita’s payment problems extend to other areas, including at least 58 London pharmacies that are also experiencing delayed payments for the pharmacy urgent repeat service.

Although NHS England has been sanctioning payments and notifying pharmacies, Capita has not been transferring the funds, Ms Shah said.

“Payments [for] the national flu service is not a problem – those payments come through the NHS Business Services Authority,” she said.

“It’s all the enhanced services, which are being paid through Capita – that is the problem.”