EXCLUSIVE

The long-term future of the new medicine service (NMS) will be announced when the new funding settlement has been agreed, C+D has learned.

A long-running evaluation of the advanced service had been "comprehensively" peer reviewed and would be handed over to NHS England in the "next few weeks", an academic leading the study told C+D.

The evaluation was commissioned to decide the future of the service, but this decision was now part of ongoing negotiations on the community pharmacy contractual framework, PSNC told C+D last week (May 26). The negotiator was unable to give a "definite timeline" for when these discussions would finish, it said.

University of Nottingham lecturer in pharmacy practice Matthew Boyd, who is leading the NMS evaluation, told C+D last week that he had received a "good set of comments" from peer reviewers.

Matthew Boyd, who is leading the evaluation, told C+D he had received a "good set of comments" on the NMS from peer reviewers	More on the NMS NMS extended for 2014-15 financial year pending evaluation of scheme Uncertainty continues for NMS as NHS England awaits evaluation NMS interventions fall amid uncertainty over future
	"The research team is now responding to those queries and we're in the process of re-drafting the report in light of those comments," he said.

Mr Boyd expected to send the report to NHS England within a few weeks, although there could be more discussions before the final report was published, he said.

Temporary NMS arrangements, announced by PSNC in March, mean contractors can continue to claim for patients recruited to the service until April 2015, while NHS England awaits the final version of the study.

NHS England said in March that if the full evaluation findings failed to confirm the service had a "positive impact" then it could be terminated with a minimum of three months' notice, with the funding reinvested in other areas of the community pharmacy contract.

In December, PSNC said that it was "continuing to raise concerns" over the uncertainty of the service, which it blamed for a 13 per cent drop in NMS payment claims between July and August 2013.

Last month, PSNC chief executive Sue Sharpe told C+D the delayed funding settlement for 2012-13 and beyond had been further pushed back until after the May half-term deadline she set in February (C+D, May 17, p8).

NHS England could not comment on when it would reach a decision about the NMS.

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