Community pharmacies

NHS England is responsible for commissioning all NHS primary care services in England, including community pharmacy services. Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are free to commission further services from community pharmacies over and above those commissioned by NHS England, and local authorities are able to commission public health services from pharmacies.The large majority of NHS income for community pharmacies in England comes from payment from NHS England, through the NHS pharmaceutical services contract. The NHS England funding settlement for 2014/15 and 2015/16 was £2.8 billion.

On 20 October 2016 the Government announced that contractors providing NHS pharmaceutical services under the community pharmacy contractual framework will receive:

• £2.687 billion in 2016/17
• £2.592 billion in 2017/18

This represents a 4% reduction in funding in 2016/17 and a further 3.4% reduction in 2017/18.

The announcement also confirmed plans for some additional funding, including:

• A Pharmacy Access Scheme to ensure services in isolated areas. The Government has published a list of 1,356 pharmacies that will receive pharmacy access payments.
• A £75 million Quality Payment Scheme which will award pharmacies extra funding based on how well they perform against criteria set out by the Government. The criteria are set out on p.11 of the Community pharmacy in 2016/16 and beyond: Final Package published by the Department for Health.
• A Pharmacy Integration Fund to support closer working with other parts of the NHS. The fund will provide £42 million from 2016 to 2018.

The downloadable data file below includes a list of pharmacies in each English parliamentary constituency, along with a summary of which are expected to be eligible for the pharmacy access scheme.

For MPs and their staff, Library researchers can provide maps of pharmacies by local area like the one featured below. Please get in touch to find out more.