Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to address the reported increase in community pharmacies having to dispense NHS prescriptions at a loss.

When market prices rise and pharmacies cannot purchase products at or below the Drug Tariff NHS reimbursement price, the Pharmaceutical Service Negotiating Committee (PSNC) can request the Department to reconsider this price. If a new reimbursement price is issued this is known as a concessionary price, which is established using real time data from suppliers to generate prices that are reflective of the overall market.

Furthermore, the Department assesses the overall medicine margin, the difference between the reimbursement price and the price the pharmacy was charged by the supplier, through an annual 'medicine margin survey'. This data is used to calculate the average amount of medicines margin retained during the year. All products that receive a concessionary price are looked at in detail in the margin survey. If underpayment has occurred, it will be made good to pharmacy contractors through margin adjustment.

As part of the ‘Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework 5-year deal: year 4 (2022 to 2023) and year 5 (2023 to 2024)’, which is available in an online-only format, the PSNC and the Department are reviewing the current concessionary price arrangement.