Pharmacy owners in Scotland are to benefit from two cash injections to support the development of the pharmacy contract. The two £400 payments from the Scottish government, allocated from the agreed 2011-12 global sum, are to aid the roll out of the chronic medication service (CMS) and the introduction of electronic claiming of prescription payments.

Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) said it helped negotiate the first payment to help contractors beyond the initial phase of the CMS, launched in 2010.

To ensure contractors qualify for the automatic payment for February, which will be paid in April, they must be on the pharmaceutical list by February 29, 2012 and risk assess and register 50 patients for the CMS by that date. 

However, any contractor who misses the 50 patients required by the end of February will have a further opportunity to reach the level by the end of March 2012, for a payment to be made in May.

It will be made automatically to any contractor who in the first four months of this year achieves the minimum rate in any single month.

The Scottish government is making the finishing touches to an online training module to support e-claiming, which will be hosted from early March on the website Scottish Health on the Web Community Pharmacy.

Commenting on the e-claiming payments, Martin Green, chairman of CPS, said: "We believe the clear evidence of uptake and usage of e-scanning and e-claiming demonstrates the effectiveness of pharmacy contractors and their teams in adopting new technology to support practice."

"This payment recognises that work put in by pharmacy teams across Scotland to embrace this new way of working."