Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of raising the threshold for Pharmacy First payments on the (a) number of pharmacies claiming payment for Pharmacy First consultations and (b) the total number of pharmacy first consultations undertaken.

As part of delivering Pharmacy First, pharmacy contractors receive a monthly fixed payment if they deliver a minimum level of activity. This level increased at set intervals between February 2024 and March 2025, as agreed with Community Pharmacy England and announced ahead of the start of the service, and as set out in the Drug Tariff. This balanced giving time for the service to embed and for public awareness to grow with ensuring that the service offers value for money.

There has been a steady increase in the delivery of the service. In 2024/25, the number of Pharmacy First consultations grew by an average of 5% per month.

Service delivery has been carefully monitored. In July, we changed the activity requirement by introducing a lower fixed payment of £500 to support those pharmacies with lower potential for delivery. Pharmacies delivering between 20 to 29 consultations now receive the lower fixed payment. The monthly payment of £1,000 for contractors delivering at least 30 consultations was maintained.

There are currently no plans to change the minimum activity requirement.