NHS England will not grant the new medicine service (NMS) permanent status when the current interim position comes to an end in two weeks time, C+D has learned. Instead the service is expected to be extended on a temporary basis for the fourth time while NHS England awaits the results of a long-running study into the scheme. 

The NMS is expected to be extended temporarily for the fourth time at the end of the month	More on the future of the NMS NMS interventions fall amid uncertainty over future NMS granted third extension Pharmacists must sell NMS beyond funding negotiations
	NHS England has received the initial findings from the study, conducted by Nottingham University, but they would not be made public, it said. C+D understands that an announcement on whether the service will continue after March is due next Monday (March 17).

"Headline findings" had been sent to NHS England, with a full evaluation due to be submitted by the end of the month, University of Nottingham lecturer in pharmacy practice Matthew Boyd, who is leading the study, confirmed.

In March 2013, the deadline for the publication of the evaluation had been pushed back from summer last year because of difficulties recruiting patients. But since then the study had "stuck to target", with the last patient recruited in September, Mr Boyd told C+D.

"We have a deadline to report the evaluation by the end of March and then it goes out for academic review. Those academic reviewers may provide comments [or] disagree with what we've said, but the Department of Health thinks it will be ready for publication around the end of May," he added.

Mr Boyd was unable to indicate whether NHS England would wait for the study to be peer-reviewed before deciding whether to commission the service permanently.

In December, PSNC expressed concern that uncertainty about the long-term future of the service had resulted in a fall in interventions. There was a 13 per cent drop in payment claims between July and August following doubts over the future of the service, PSNC figures claimed.

PSNC told C+D last week it had been in discussions with NHS England about the future of the service based on initial findings from the evaluation and expected news "imminently". It continued to stress the need for contractors to have "clarity on the future of the service", it said.