The requirement to provide the monthly Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) consultation to achieve a Pharmacy First fixed monthly payment has been put on hold.
The plan was earlier scheduled to be rolled out on 1 October.
The bundling requirements came into force on 1 June 2025, meaning pharmacies must be registered to deliver the pharmacy contraception service, hypertension case finding service, and Pharmacy First – in addition to delivering the minimum number of clinical pathway Pharmacy First consultations – to receive a fixed monthly payment.
The new development happened after DHSC, NHS England, and Community Pharmacy England (CPE) agreed to postpone the requirement.
The CPE and many pharmacy owners had earlier issued representations that they struggle to get patients to agree to ABPM following a high clinic blood pressure reading.
An analysis by the Company Chemists Association (CCA) found that as of February 2025, only around 30 percent of pharmacies were meeting the planned bundling requirements.
The rest of the pharmacies missed out on fixed monthly payments.
Meanwhile, the NHSE has said it will be reviewing the use of home blood pressure monitoring to further support the diagnosis of hypertension.
CPE said this addition to the hypertension case-finding service could be an appropriate way to meet the needs of patients who cannot tolerate or reject the offer of ABPM.
