Home The Pharmacy Contract
Welcome to the Pharmacy Contract section of the website. This section contains details of the NHS community pharmacy contract which was agreed between PSNC, the Department of Health (DH) and the NHS Confederation (NHS Employers) and was accepted by pharmacy contractors in two ballots. The new arrangements began in April 2005. The links below will guide you to all the contract information on this website.
The Contract Service Details
The contract is made up of three different service levels:
Essential services - provided by all contractors.
Advanced services - can be provided by all contractors once accreditation requirements have been met.
Enhanced services - commissioned locally by Primary Care Organisations (PCOs) in response to the needs of the local population.
Click on the link below for a brief summary of the contract structure:
Summary of new contract structure (Dec 04) (PDF Format)
Forms and Resources
The Publications Database section of the website contains essential contract forms for pharmacy contractors, such as the MUR form, Complaints Procedures and Fitness to Practise forms. Other resources and briefing documents linked to a particular service can be found in the relevant section for that service.
Pharmacy Contract Funding
The Contract Funding section of the website provides a summary of the contract financial arrangements including information on payments, fees and allowances.
IT and the Contract
An overview of the various projects that are part of the National Programme for NHS IT which will support and impact on the community pharmacy contract is available in the Pharmacy IT section of this website.
Pharmacy Contract NHS Regulations
Implementation of the contract required new NHS Regulations to be laid. More information on the NHS (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2005 is available in the Regulatory Issues section of the website. Changes to Control of Entry arrangements were made at the same time as the contract was introduced. More information can be found in the Control of Entry section of the website.
The Negotiation of the Pharmacy Contract
This section provides background information about the contract's aims and objectives and how it was negotiated.
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