Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of dispensing GPs matching the terms of the drug reimbursement agreement in place for pharmacies.

Dispensing doctors are reimbursed in line with the Statement of Financial Entitlement Directions, which sets out the reimbursements general practices (GPs), including dispensing GPs, are entitled to.

Dispensing practices receive a dispensing fee, approximately £2.00 to £2.30 per item, which is intended to cover dispensing costs. This fee is calculated based on forecasted volumes of prescriptions to be dispensed and the size of the funding envelope, according to a methodology agreed by the Department, the GP committee of the British Medical Association (BMA), NHS Employers, and the Welsh administration. An updated methodology was agreed between the BMA and NHS England to address the issue of continuing fluctuation between over and underspend year on year, the alternating pattern of over and under spends, and was implemented in October 2023.