Shutterstock.com
Nearly 600 community pharmacists may have missed out on potentially thousands of pounds of income for failing to update or revalidate their details on their individual NHS Choices web page.
The action is a mandatory first step required in order for them to go on and make a claim under the Quality Payments Scheme (QPS) which is worth an average £5,400 per contactor per year in England.
But a week before the 24 November deadline to complete the action, 563 contractors or pharmacy owners had still failed to do so, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) revealed.
The national negotiators are hoping that their social media and email alerts reminding pharmacists about the mandatory requirements — supported by Local Pharmaceutical Committees — in the run up to the November cut-off date was enough to prompt contractors into action.
In April when contractors made their last QPS claim, they were given a second chance by the NHS Business Authority to meet their web page obligations if they had failed to fulfil them first time around.
But that option is not available for November QPS claims, the PSNC confirmed.
“There was some confusion in April as some contractors thought that if their details hadn’t changed, they did not need to do anything, but in fact they did need to revalidate their NHS Choices details even if they hadn’t changed,” the spokesperson said.
“The NHS Business Authority has made it very clear that they won’t be given a second chance in November.”
