DHSC imposes changes to concession pricing

Community Pharmacy England has warned of changes that may lower concession prices paid between April and June.

The changes came into effect from April 1 and, according to CPE are untested and imposed. CPE adds that no recovery or downward pressure on margin is acceptable given the financial fragility of community pharmacies.

The announcement can be found in the April Tariff Part II Clause 8 B. It reads: “Ordinarily, under the agreed process, Part VIIIA Category M reimbursement prices for April to June 2024 would contain adjustments for the results of the medicine margin survey (latest results up until the end of September 2023). This would have meant a downward margin adjustment for April to June 2024 of £16.2million, so some prices in the April to June 2024 Drug Tariff would have been lower than they are. Instead of making that downward adjustment to Category M, a downwards adjustment will be made to concessionary prices during April to June 2024.

“The Department will accept concessionary price requests from Community Pharmacy England as normal but will change its approach so that the concessionary prices granted may be lower than they would have been. It is important to emphasise that requests should nevertheless continue to come in, as normal.”

Part 5 of the preface to the April Tariff also notes that FreeStyle Libre 2 Plus sensors have been added to the Appliances section in Part IXA of the April 2024 Drug Tariff and are included in the Drugs for which Discount is Not Deducted (DND) list (Part II of the Drug Tariff). DND does not apply to dispensing GPs.

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