Scottish pharmacists will be paid in four instalments for implementing the chronic medication service (CMS), which is being rolled out this year. Contractors can expect up to £2,250 paid between now and March 2011. Payments will be given when contractors meet requirements for the three stages of the implementation, which includes the first stage of the roll out and delivery of the chronic medication service. Contractors are required to sign 50 patients up to the service before the end of December, ahead of expansion of the scheme next year. Community Pharmacy Scotland head of policy and development Dr Elsbeth Weir said they had looked at all areas of funding in order to finance the chronic medication service. Dr Weir said: “We have reduced some payments for the public health service, but we have also increased payments for dispensing and chosen to fund the chronic medication service.”Pharmacy owner George Romanes of George Romanes Pharmacy in Duns said the payments were reasonable but he was concerned about the amount of time left to register 50 patients on the chronic medication service.Mr Romanes said: “We had to migrate from Link to Postscript, which is enabled to do the chronic medication service, but that was only last week.“With everyone on holiday next month that only gives us September, October and November to deliver the service to these 50 patients.”Ensuring appropriate IT is available for the service is one of the requirements for the first payment. Dr Weir added: “We are still in the phase of implementing the service and we will see how the roll-out goes.”