Pharmacists in Scotland will receive an extra payment to help ease cash flow during the peak winter period.
The payments, to be made by 22 December 2017, are a consequence of negotiations between Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) and the Scottish government. A total of £1.3m will be allocated across the Scottish community pharmacy network.
Details of the payment were announced in a letter from Rose Marie Parr, Scotland’s chief pharmaceutical officer, to Martin Green, chair of CPS.
Dated 18 December 2017, the letter confirms that the “temporary support allocation” will be “distributed to each contractor on a ‘fair shares’ basis using contractors’ dispensing activity for the month of December.
“This is in addition to the £1.2m adjustment to Dispensing Pool payments made to contractors on 8 December.”
The terms of the payment, Parr said, are directly related to the “currently assessed underperformance of the [annualised] minimum guarantee sum of £110m from drug and appliance reimbursement”.
Future monthly contractor payments, Parr added, will be subject to adjustments if monitoring shows that performance deviates from the annualised amount — the minimum level of funding that the government agrees pharmacists should receive.
