Recently opened community pharmacies can receive advance funding to help mitigate cashflow issues due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The category of pharmacies include those that had changes due to ownership, consolidations, mergers which occurred between March 1 and June 30, 2020.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has announced that, “as long as these recently opened pharmacies provided NHS pharmaceutical services during these months, they will be eligible to receive a share of the total uplift of circa £370 million in advance funding given to pharmacy contractors.”
The DHSC added: “Pharmacy contractors should note that the uplifts will not show on their schedule of payment, but the NHSBSA will be sending a letter to affected contractors outlining their uplift.”
Different arrangements to calculate uplift payments were needed for new pharmacies that opened between March and June because of the method used for calculation of the advance payments.
Those pharmacies that opened between March and June and did not receive uplift by August have an opportunity until November 5 to make representations as to why they think they should have received the uplift or a top-up to the uplift they received.
Forms put forward by contractors will be considered by the Secretary of State for Health on a monthly basis to the following schedule.
| Month pharmacy opened | Timing of FP34C submission | How the uplift will be calculated |
| March 2020 | FP34C submitted in March 2020 | Contractors will receive uplift based on the average each prescription got from £300 million for each prescription they dispensed in March |
| March 2020 | No FP34C submitted for March but submitted for April 2020 | Contractors will receive uplift based on the average each prescription got from £100 million for each prescription they dispensed in April. However, if you provided NHS pharmaceutical services in March but failed to submit the batch you can make representations to access the uplift based on £300 million using the appropriate form (see the full determination on the NHSBSA website for more details). |
| March 2020 | No FP34C submitted for March and April but submitted for May 2020 | No uplift. However, if you provided NHS pharmaceutical services in March and/or April but failed to submit the batch you can make representations to access the uplift based on £300 million or £100 million using the appropriate form (see the full determination on the NHSBSA website for more details). |
| April 2020 | FP34C submitted for April 2020 | Contractors will receive uplift based on the average each prescription got from £100 million for each prescription they dispensed in April. |
| April 2020 | No FP34C submitted for April but submitted for May 2020 | No uplift. However, if you provided NHS pharmaceutical services in April but failed to submit the batch you can make representations to access the uplift based on £100 million using the appropriate form (see the full determination on the NHSBSA website for more details). |
| May 2020 | FP34C submitted for May 2020 | Contractors will receive uplift based on the average each prescription got from £50 million for each prescription they dispensed in May. |
| May 2020 | No FP34C submitted for May but submitted for June 2020 | No uplift. However, If you provided NHS pharmaceutical services in May but failed to submit the batch you can make representations to access the uplift based on £50 million using the appropriate form (see the full determination on the NHSBSA website for more details). |
| June 2020 | FP34C submitted for June 2020 | Contractors will receive uplift based on the average each prescription got from £20 million for each prescription they dispensed in June. |
| June 2020 | No FP34C submitted for June but submitted for July 2020 | No uplift. However, if you provided NHS pharmaceutical services in June but failed to submit the batch you can make representations to access the uplift based on £20 million using the appropriate form (see the full determination on the NHSBSA website for more details). |
(Credit: DHSC).
