FOI-03354

__Request__

_The request relates to payments made to pharmacies for the Pharmacy First programme. Part of these payments is a monthly fixed payment of £1000 if the pharmacy meets criteria such as the consultation threshold and (since June 2025) registered for the hypertension case finding service and contraception service. I would like to request a spreadsheet which includes the pharmacy identifier, the month and the fixed monthly payment amount £. I will then be able to combine this with data you already published on PF consultations to calculate the total monthly payments._ 
 
_Date range: 01/02/2023 – 31/10/2025_

__Response__

__August 2025__ 
 
I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information is attached. 
 
Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data. 
 
NHS Prescription Services process prescriptions for pharmacy contractors, appliance contractors, dispensing doctors and personal administration with information then used to make payments to pharmacists and appliance contractors in England for prescriptions dispensed in primary care settings (other arrangements are in place for making payments to dispensing doctors and personal administration). This involves processing over 1 billion prescription items and payments totalling over £9 billion each year. The information gathered from this process is then used to provide information on costs and trends in prescribing in England and Wales to over 25,000 registered NHS and Department of Health and Social Care users. 
 
__Data source__  
 
Source System – Insight Data Warehouse (NHSBSA). 
 
__Time period__  
 
August 2025 - pharmacy data 
 
__This dataset__ 
 
This report consists of a management information file detailing monthly Community Pharmacy payment by type of payment and contractor account. Payments include all drug costs, fees, patient charges and locally authorised payments. Other details such as the numbers of items dispensed and patient charges collected are also included. 
 
The management information file reflects the contractor's payment and prescription data associated with the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) structure at the relevant payment date. 
 
__Disclosure control__ 
 
The data in columns ‘METHADONE PAYMENT FEE’ and ‘CONTROLLED DRUGS FEE VALUE’ within the Pharmacy dataset have been removed following Information Governance policy. 
 
Note - for further information relating to the payments included within this Data Dictionary, please consult the NHS Business Services Authority's Electronic Drug Tariff and NHS Prescription Services payment information (Local Authorised Payments National Menu): 
 
•	https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp-practices-and-appliance-contractors/drug-tariff 

•	https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp-practices-and-appliance-contractors/dispensing-contractors-information/payment-information 
 
__Remaining Data__ 
 
Under Section 21 of the FOIA we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.  
 
The information you requested is available from the following weblinks and is available at the bottom of each webpage under “Data and Resources”: 
 
•	February 2024 Data: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01916  
 
•	March 2024, April 2024, May 2024 and June 2024: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02117 
 
•	July 2024, August 2024, September 2024, October 2024, November 2024, December 2024, and January 2025: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02691  
 
•	February 2025 and March 2025: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02908  
 
•	April 2025, May 2025, June 2025 and July 2025: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-03295  
 
Please see the following link to view the section 21 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/21 
 
__Advice and assistance__ 
 
To access the data, you can check previous Management Information Spreadsheet (MIS) FOIs and look up the column PF_CP_MONTHLY_FIXED_PAY. This column shows fixed payments made to a contractor for fulfilling NHS Pharmacy First Service consultations. It also covers both the £1000 payments as well as the £500 fixed payment for delivering between 20 - 29 consultations (this came into effect from June 2025). 
  
There is also an adjustment column within the MIS (PF_CP_MONTHLY_FIXED_PAY_ADJ) which includes any retrospective payments made, or any reclaiming of fixed payments (shown as minus figures). 
  
We would also refer you to Part VIC within the Drug Tariff 

https://www.drugtariff.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/#/00899627-DC/DC00899374/Part%20VIC%20-%20Advanced%20Services%20 which outlines: 

•	the number of consultations required per month for a contractor to receive the fixed payment 

•	any additional information in relation to the NHS Pharmacy First Service and the fixed payments. 
  
The FOIs in this response cover the available data we hold. Please note that the service began in January 2024 and the first payments commenced from the following month, and so no data is available prior to then. August 2025 is currently the latest month of data available. 

__Data Queries__

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

__Reusing the data and copyright__

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ 

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “Insight Data Warehouse (NHSBSA), NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.



Tags: MIS Reports, NHS Prescription Services
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log