The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework for 2026/2027

Government Published Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework: Link

A funding settlement for community pharmacies in 2026/27 will be implemented from this month after Community Pharmacy England accepted the offer, on condition of a shared programme of reform with Government and NHS England.

The settlement will see the pharmacy funding budget increased by 10.3% this financial year (higher than the NHS overall increase), to £3.636 billion, alongside the introduction of Independent Prescribing into Pharmacy First and the Pharmacy Contraception Service later in the year.

The settlement also includes a £200 million uplift to the margin allowance and, in response to Community Pharmacy England’s representations, Government is also making a write-off of net contract (margin) over-delivery earned up to the end of March 2026 – saving pharmacy owners up to £239m more in recovery – in efforts to stabilise the increasingly volatile medicines supply chain.

Progress has also been made on regulatory changes, including:

• to allow pharmacies to close for up to 4 hours a month to support staff training;
• to allow late payment claims for Pharmacy First and NMS;
• to continue work to help to protect pharmacy staff from patient abuse and violence; and
• to continue work to stop the inappropriate management of EPS nominations by a small number of pharmacy owners.

Despite pharmacy being prioritised for a higher funding uplift than other parts of the NHS, and improvements to the final offer achieved during negotiations, Committee Members were very reluctant to accept the deal.

The funding available will cover growth in activity and inflation in the coming year, but does not make further significant progress towards delivering sustainability to an increasingly unstable sector.

Additionally, despite acceptance of the final CPCF offer, we are not persuaded that sufficient investment is being made to enable the full and effective introduction of IP within the CPCF, given the workload, enhanced clinical responsibility, clinical governance and infrastructure requirements that it will entail.

Throughout the negotiations, we raised our concerns that with the proposed funding, the addition of IP to the CPCF risked being set up to fail. It will be down to pharmacy owners to decide on an individual basis whether they want to provide the service or prioritise the use of IP skills elsewhere.

Community Pharmacy England has warned Government that the pressures on pharmacies will mean continued closures, reduced opening hours, deteriorating quality of service and risk unavoidable harm to patients. We will continue to press for the long-term sustainable solution that community pharmacies, and everyone they serve, needs, and for specific measures such as to improve medicines supply resilience, prevent pharmacies from having to dispense at a loss, and for further investment to support Independent Prescribing.

But we recognise that:

• Ministers have treated pharmacy preferentially for the second year running – the pharmacy funding uplift is the highest across primary care, and higher than that of the overall NHS.
• Ministers have committed to working jointly on reforms that will build the strategy for community pharmacy and explore alternative contract, funding and reimbursement models – which would have been impossible without constructive engagement with Government.

The Committee decided that stopping dialogue with Government was too risky for the future of the community pharmacy sector. They accepted the offer in order to secure a 10.3% funding increase to pharmacies as soon as possible, alongside beginning critical work on the future.

Given the scope and importance of the reform work, the Committee was not willing to risk undoing the progress that had been made with this Government in recognising the value of the sector and developing clinical ambitions for the future as set out in the 10 Year Health Plan.

Community Pharmacy England is now calling on the community pharmacy sector to come together on a radical programme of reform to inform future strategy and our work with Government. We will be inviting all sector bodies to put forward their ideas to plot a new direction of travel for the sector.

For further information on Independent Prescribing visit the dedicated page:  link