Last Updated on October 17, 2016

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has rejected the Department of Health’s proposed pharmacy funding package for 2016/17 citing the damage it could do to social care and the NHS.

PSNC says that the proposed package, 'includes reckless cuts to pharmacy funding that will, if implemented, see patients suffer as services are withdrawn'. It says that the Department of Health will now have to propose a revised funding package, or impose its proposed funding changes on England’s community pharmacies.

Rejecting the offer, the PSNC response noted that the proposals:

• Would reduce funding from December 2016 to March 2017 by 12% on current levels, to set funding for this year at £2.687bn.
• Would reduce funding for 2017-18 by 7.4% on current levels, to set funding at £2.592bn for that year.
• Would force pharmacies to reduce staffing and cut back on services.
• Are rooted in the Government’s professed aim to close pharmacies.

It also highlighted the damage that such pharmacy funding cuts could have on other parts of the system, including social care saying, 'The proposals are founded on ignorance of the value of pharmacies to local communities, to the NHS, and to social care, and will do great damage to all three.'

Community pharmacy has offered the Department of Health costed alternative proposals to reduce the NHS medicines bill, that would save the NHS money equivalent to the cuts demanded. Community pharmacy also proposed new community pharmacy services that would save the NHS money by reducing demand in A&E and GP surgeries. It says that all of these proposals were rejected out of hand.

Unlike all previous negotiations between community pharmacy and the Department of Health, the PSNC says that, this year’s negotiations were not characterised by collaborative working. It also claims that:

• The Department of Health has not published evidence in support of its plan to reduce pharmacy funding.
• It has not responded to research showing that twelve pharmacy services create an annual £3bn net benefit for the NHS and others by community pharmacies, or research that suggests its approach would hit areas with greatest health inequalities hardest.
• The proposals will lead to free health services being withdrawn from community pharmacies.