Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Health when negotiations for new contractual and funding arrangements with community pharmacy representatives will commence.
Minister of Health: A contractual framework has been in place with Community Pharmacy since 2017 which was negotiated between Health and Social Care Board, DoH and Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland (CPNI).
My Department continues to liaise with CPNI, through the Community Pharmacy Commissioning Oversight Group, to oversee the delivery of commissioned community pharmacy services in line with the financial envelope and against the commissioning plan in order to ensure the provision of best possible services to patients and the public.
My officials are working closely with CPNI regarding the development of a new 3-year commissioning plan 2025-2028 to support implementation of the Community Pharmacy Strategy 2030. A workshop was held with CPNI on 4 February 2025 to review achievements of the previous 3 years, and to a develop the new plan which has since been shared with CPNI.
A funding update for 2024/25 & 2025/26 was issued to community pharmacy contractors on 14th March 2025. This provided an increase to the opening position of 2024/25 of £7.7m as follows:
| Opening position 2024/25 | £147m |
| Non-Global sum uplift 2024/25 | £2.4m |
| Margin Threshold | £2.5m |
| Zero Discount Appliances | £2.8m (estimate) |
| Total | £154.7m |
| Increase | £7.7m |
Following the announcement of the 2025/26 Draft Budget allocation the Department has assessed that it will be facing a significant funding gap in 2025/26 as a result of both inflationary pressures and increased demand.
In recognition of the valuable role played by community pharmacies, these funding pressures are being considered alongside the other priorities of the Department and we are unable to make any commitments at this stage.
ENDS
Your MLA 