December 21st 2023

By Ailsa Colquhoun

Jan Cat M announced

13 products more than doubled in price

NHS BSA has announced the January 2024 (Q4) Category M adjustment.

In summary there are:

Six additions

• Clobazam 10mg tablets x30: £4.14
• Colesevelam 625mg tablets x180: £70.56
• Fluoxetine 40mg capsules x30: £2.17
• Metformin 1g / Sitagliptin 50mg tablets x56: £15.40
• Nifedipine 5mg capsules x90: £45.89
• Venlafaxine 75mg modified-release capsules x28: £2.82

Six deletions

There are 207 products up in price, including 13 products which have more than doubled in price.

There are 424 products down in price, including seven products, the price of which has fallen by at least 50 per cent.

Community Pharmacy England has published the following analysis of the changes:

• There will be an overall reduction to reimbursement of approximately £35m per quarter on like-for-like Category M lines.
• The effect of new entrants to Category M will be a reduction to reimbursement of approximately £3m per quarter.
• Therefore the overall impact of the new Category M list will be a reimbursement reduction of approximately £38m per quarter, equivalent to a reduction in AIV of around -14p per item.
• This indicative modelling uses the latest pharmacy dispensing volumes available to Community Pharmacy England as a proxy for the expected dispensing volumes in quarter Jan-Mar 24. The actual impact of the changes in the quarter will be subject to variation based on actual volumes observed.

Following the adjustment, Category M remains unchanged in number at 661 lines.

DDA members can view the full spreadsheet, sorted by price history, price change and price % change