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The average pharmacy in England will be better off by over £60,000 a year under the new contractual settlement, Community Pharmacy England has said – but it added that this is before costs rises such as national insurance are accounted for. 

In a statement on Friday April 4, CPE said it had calculated that the “effective increase” of £511m to core funding and a £167m in the annual Pharmacy First budget will “equate to an average of roughly £65,200 per pharmacy, or £5,342 per month”. 

CPE also noted that the Government’s decision to write off £193m of historic margin would “keep reimbursement prices higher than they would otherwise have been”.

But the negotiator acknowledged that in reality income will “vary considerably” depending on the size of a business and the services it provides. 

And CPE confirmed that these income boosts do not account for “any specific costs” such as wage bills or national insurance rises and are instead “part of a wider recognition that the sector has been critically underfunded for many years”.

One contractor recently told P3pharmacy he had calculated that the funding boost would only cover half of his increased cost base from April 1 this year. 

CPE said the settlement will not resolve “all of the sector’s problems,” adding that Labour “has acknowledged that this is only the first step towards stabilising the sector” but was, reportedly, the maximum amount available “given the current extreme pressures on public finances”.

The negotiator said it had “reluctantly” accepted the 2025-26 deal, adding that Labour had indicated the settlement was “as much as they could deliver… given the current extreme pressures on public finances”.

On the lowering of the fee for clinic blood pressure checks from £15 to £10, CPE said it had agreed to this as the initial fee from 2021 was “based on a pharmacist providing the service,” with subsequent VAT regulation changes opening the service up to “suitably trained” pharmacy assistants. 

The CPE committee “recognised the rationale” for this but also pushed for fee rises for services like contraception provision “where we had always considered the fee to be too low”. 

And it attempted to reassure contractors that the 19p rise in the single activity fee is based on a projected three per cent rise in prescription items during 2025-26, meaning that it should keep its value – and that there “may be adjustments to fee levels during the year” if script volume growth is higher or lower than estimated.