2025-03-31 17:11:50
NHS terms of service in England
An agreement between the Department of Health and Social Care and Community Pharmacy England has been announced. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework will involve changes to the terms of service in Schedule 4 to the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013. A date for implementing the changes has not been announced yet.
The following points are taken from Community Pharmacy England’s briefing:
Pharmacy practice leaflets
The requirement for pharmacies to have a practice leaflet will be removed.
Core hours of service
– Changing core opening hours remains an application process – the ICB must approve any proposed change.
? The total number of core opening hours must remain the same (another provision applies for applications to reduce the number of core opening hours).
? The new/proposed core opening hours must better meet the needs of patients and likely users of the pharmacy.
? A pharmacy owner’s evidence of the economic viability of their current opening hours may be considered by the ICB.
Distance Selling Premises (DSP) pharmacies
DSPs will no longer be able to provide Advanced and Enhanced services to patients on the pharmacy premises. Where the service specification for individual services allows remote consultations to be provided or off-site provision of a service, that will still be possible for all pharmacies, including for DSPs.
New Medicine Service (NMS) change
The service requirements for the NMS will be changed to state/clarify that the service cannot be subcontracted to another provider. This will stop NMS being provided via a remote consultation with the patient by a pharmacist working off the pharmacy premises who is not employed by the pharmacy owner.
Control of entry in Scotland
In Burns Pharmacy Ltd [2025] CSOH 33, the Court of Session, Outer House, had to consider the control of entry provisions in the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2009. An application by a pharmacist for inclusion in a pharmaceutical list had made in 2021. The application related to a proposed pharmacy in the applicant’s home village of Monckton in Ayrshire. The application had been strenuously opposed by Burns Pharmacy Ltd which owns nearby pharmacies. As a result of a series of appeals and a previous judicial review application, the application had not been granted until 2024. This grant was provisional. The applicant then had to give notice of his intention to commence providing services to the Local Health Board by a specified date. The Local Health Board had granted the applicant an extension of time. Burns Pharmacy Ltd petitioned the court for a judicial review of the decision to extend time. The judge, Lord Sandison, described the Regulations as “dense”. He refused the petition for judicial review (repelled the pleas of Burns Pharmacy Ltd), holding that the Local Health Board had had power to grant an extension of time and that the extension was valid.