Formal negotiations on the arrangements for the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework in 2024/25 – the first year following the five-year CPCF deal – have now begun, Community Pharmacy England has confirmed. However, CPE chief executive Janet Morrison says she expects the two sides to begin "a long way apart on core funding". 

The negotiations between CPE and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), supported by NHS England (NHSE) are beginning ahead of the new financial year, but later than planned due to the volume of work created by the launch of the Pharmacy First service.

CPE says that negotiations will ‘as usual’ remain confidential, but that it will update contractors on the outcome as soon as it can.

“CPE has been warning about the perilous financial situation that pharmacy businesses now find themselves in, as well as the lack of capacity available within community pharmacy. We will continue to underline that, as well as the significant risks posed to medicines supply and to patient care, throughout this negotiation,” said Ms Morrison.

“We believe that we, the NHS and DHSC all share a goal to make Pharmacy First a success, but given the progress of other primary care negotiations, we expect to begin a long way apart on core funding. We’ll be using the huge volume of evidence and analysis that we have to argue what we know to be true: that whatever the Government and NHS’ affordability challenges may be, they cannot afford to stand by and let community pharmacies fail."