Pharmacy contract must end ‘uncertainty and unfairness’ says NPA

The pharmacy sector needs an ‘above inflation’ settlement and progress towards services and contract reform, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has said as it set out the grounds for a successful 2026/27 contract deal in England.

It also said that any deal needs to cover cost increases and work towards bridging the funding gap identified by the independent economic analysis of the sector, commissioned by the NHS last year.

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And it said the settlement should include a commitment to ‘investing in expanding community pharmacy services and prescribing’ and reform of the pharmacy contract to end the ‘uncertainty and unfairness created by funding clawbacks’.

The NPA urged Community Pharmacy England (CPE) to reject any offer that doesn’t make progress in these key areas.

Chair of the NPA, Olivier Picard, said: ‘Although increased funding in 2025 was a welcome end to years of real terms cuts, pharmacies remain heavily underfunded and shackled by a system that gives little idea from month to month what the Government will pay for NHS prescriptions. That needs to end.

‘Financial uncertainty and underfunding of dispensing, alongside a lack of investment in new services leaves pharmacies struggling and holds back the Government’s ambition to transform care in our communities.’

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He said that he wanted to work with ministers to deliver their vision of a community health service, but that required proper funding of medicine supply, the embedding of prescribing and clinical services with the contract, and reform of an ‘outdated’ pharmacy contract.

The NPA outlines three key changes it wants to see:

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• A real-terms increase in NHS funding for pharmacy – covering the increase in costs and activity, and a clear and credible commitment to closing the funding gap.

• Commitment to investment in expanding community pharmacy clinical services outside funding for medicines supply to deliver Government ambitions to move care into communities with prescribing services embedded as a nationally commissioned part of the pharmacy contract.

• Real reform of the broken and outdated pharmacy contract to give pharmacies much-needed certainty about funding for NHS medicines and services and an end the pain of the unfair system of clawbacks.

In November 2025, the Welsh government announced a 4% increase in funding for the pharmacy sector in Wales.

This increase will see the value of the community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF) fees and allowances for Wales rise to £182m – an increase of nearly 30% since 2016-17.