Home Funding & Drug Tariff
In this section of the website you'll find a variety of information linked to the national contract funding arrangements, recent changes to the Drug Tariff and NHS Prescription Service's pricing procedures, up to date information on the NCSO concession, disallowed appliances, the prescription charge arrangements and much more.
Use the Navigation bar on the left or click on the links below to access different sections:
National Contract Funding
The National Contract Funding section including detailed guidance on how pharmacy funding is calculated, the distribution of funds including funding for Essential and Advanced services, Category M, the EPS Allowances and Pre-registration Grant and an overview of the current funding levels. It also contains guidance on the devolving of the Global Sum in 2010/11.
Click here to see a chronological summary of key funding changes which affected pharmacy contractor's payments.
For brief guides to pharmacy funding and economics, click on the links below:
PSNC's brief guide to community pharmacy economics
PSNC's brief guide to community pharmacy funding
Drug Tariff Resource Centre
The Drug Tariff Resource Centre contains detailed guidance on the Drug Tariff including different NHS prescription forms, prescribing rights of different health professionals, Controlled Drugs and installment dispensing and how reimbursement for medicines and appliances is calculated.
PSNC regularly publishes a 'Dispensing Resources' Booklet including the Special Container and Calendar Pack List and the Alphabetical List of Charges. This can be downloaded for free here.
Special Container & Calendar Pack Database
The online Special Container & Calendar Pack Database contains up-to-date information on products that have been recognised by the Department of Health as being packaged in special containers or calendar packs. Detailed guidance on these provisions can be found in the Drug Tariff Resource Centre.
Supply Issues/NCSO
In the Supply Issues section of the site, you'll find a list of products currently granted the NCSO Concession, a summary of branded products with recently reported supply issues and a form for reporting issues electronically to PSNC.
Distribution of Medicines
There have been a number of recent and proposed distribution changes by leading UK medicine suppliers. In this section of the site, you'll find a summary of recent changes and up-to-date information on the outcomes of the OFT report on this issue.
NHSBSA Capacity Improvement Programme
To improve the efficiency of prescription pricing, the NHSBSA Prescription Pricing Division (NHSBSA PPD) has introduced an automated pricing system, known as the Capacity Improvement Programme (CIP). In this section of the site, you'll find up to date news and guidance on issues such as prescription switching, prescriptions returned for clarification and the accuracy of payment pricing.
NHS Statistics
In the NHS Statistics section of the site, you'll find a variety of statistics linked to NHS community pharmacy funding, the implementation of the pharmacy contract's Advanced Services and the Electronic Prescription Service, as well as links to sources of information on general NHS Statistics.
Drug Tariff News
Drug Tariff News can now be found in the Resources & News Section of the website.
DOWNLOADS: Some documents are available in PDF format, you will require Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or later for viewing which can be downloaded from the Adobe Website
DOWNLOADS: Some documents are available in ‘Microsoft Word’ format. If you do not have Microsoft Word, you can read these forms by downloading the free 'Word Viewer'. This program can be downloaded at the Microsoft website