Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health of 20 December 2016, Official Report, how much of the £300 million pharmacy integration fund has been expended.

Spend on the Pharmacy Integration Fund was £216,305 in 2016/17 and is estimated to be £18,200,370 in 2017/18. A further £40 million has been committed for 2018/19.

Delays to planned expenditure did result in an underspend against the funding allocated to this programme. As is standard Government finance procedure, underspends cannot be carried forward by either NHS England or the Department. As a result some of this funding was appropriated to support other programmes outside of pharmacy. The Government however remains committed to this programme which is already having a real impact and which will continue to develop.