Over 10k pharmacies qualify for QPS payments

Over 10,000 pharmacies are eligible to claim reimbursements under the Quality Payments Scheme (QPS), the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has revealed.

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According to figures from NHSBSA, as of yesterday (14 March) 10,292 contractors have achieved the gateway criteria to qualify for further payments under the 2018/19 scheme.

These contractors are therefore:

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1. Offering patients the opportunity to access at least one advanced service at their pharmacy;
2. Have updated/validated their NHS website profile to ensure it is up-to-date;
3. Have the results of their latest community pharmacy patient questionnaire publicly available on their NHS website profile;
4. Have a live premises NHSmail account with two live linked personal accounts; and
5. Have pharmacy operating systems and browsers which are compliant with NHS Digital’s warranted environment specification (WES).

Validated contractors will be reimbursed for the quality criteria they had met when they made their submissions, the NHSBSA said.

As part of its interim pharmacy contract announcement earlier this month (8 March) – which comes into force on 1 April – the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) revealed that it had not yet began discussions about the future of the QPS with the Government.

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The future of the scheme is subject to negotiation, it said.