Contract negotiations will be ‘very tough’, warns CPE

Pharmacy leaders should prepare for ‘hard choices’ during contract negotiations after the government warned of a constrained budget, said Janet Morrison, chief executive of Community Pharmacy England (CPE), at the Pharmacy Show conference.

Ms Morrison said she had recently spoken with pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock who warned about ‘the gloomy outlook’ ahead of next pharmacy contract negotiations.

‘We know that it’s going to be very tough across the board,’ she said.

Despite the government promising to begin negotiations in September, ‘that month has been and gone’, Ms Morrison said.

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The process is now not expected to commence before November, she noted.

The last Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) saw the sector receive a funding uplift of more than 30% – the largest uplift in funding across the whole of the NHS – but Mr Kinnock was ‘very clear’ that pharmacy will not be getting that again.

Ms Morrison used her speech at this year’s Pharmacy Show to also discuss the NHS 10-year plan.

She said the government’s Spending Review did not give the NHS ‘a lot of headroom to do the important things they want to do in the 10-year plan’.

She also criticised the plan’s lack of detail. ‘It’s a list of ambitions. There are no priorities, no upcoming implementation plan, and in light of the Spending Review there are hard choices to be made.’

The government must also have a demonstrable impact on the NHS ahead of the next general election, which will measured using several key indicators: waiting times in A&E, waiting times for elective surgery, access to NHS dentistry and access to GP appointments.

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Ms Morrison saw this as both an opportunity and a concern.

She worried that several of the government’s indicators focus on hospital services, which will make it harder to convince the government to move money from hospital into primary care.

But there’s also an opportunity for pharmacy to improve access to GP appointments, she said.

‘Our focus now is to try and create, with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), a roadmap for community pharmacy – how we’d like to prioritise developing the scope of community pharmacy over the next 10 years.’

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CPE will also emphasise the sector’s precarious financial position, she said. Its Pharmacy Pressures Survey 2025 revealed pharmacy owners’ ongoing struggle to keep their businesses afloat in the wake of medicine supply issues, inflation, rising operational costs, and increasing staff wages.

Though she ended on a more optimistic note: ‘However challenging the current environment is, we are the most efficient part of the NHS. We have financially efficient solutions to offer. We have got a really good investment business case for why those services would add value and we have to keep making that point.’