Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the NHS Dispensing Fee for dispensing GP practices in the context of recent increases in employers’ National Insurance contributions.

General practices (GPs) are valued independent contractors who provide over £13 billion worth of National Health Services. Every year we consult with the profession about what services GPs provide, and the money providers are entitled to in return under their contract, taking account of the cost of delivering services, including dispensing fees.

Dispensing practices receive a dispensing fee, approximately £2.00 to 2.50 per item, which is intended to cover dispensing costs. This fee is calculated based on the forecasted volumes of prescriptions to be dispensed and the size of the funding envelope, according to a methodology agreed by the Department, the General Practitioners Committee, NHS Employers, and the Welsh Government. An updated methodology was agreed between the British Medical Association 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 implemented in October 2023.

We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in GPs to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, which is the biggest cash increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is greater than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget as a whole.