AP Photo / Kirsty Wigglesworth
Pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock has thanked the pharmacy negotiator for the “incredibly constructive” way that Community Pharmacy England (CPE) worked on negotiations for the newly announced community pharmacy contract for 2026/2027.
Speaking at a Westminster Hall debate on the future of community pharmacies, held on 2 June 2026, Kinnock said he would like to put on record “our thanks to Community Pharmacy England and to Janet Morrison in particular for the incredibly constructive way in which they engaged with myself and my team around the contract negotiations, and about the strategic thinking that needs to go into long term reform”.
The details of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) for 2026/2027 were announced on 29 May 2026, and it included a £340m uplift as well as the introduction of independent prescribing (IP) into the Pharmacy First service.
Announcing the deal, CPE said in a statement that it recognised that community pharmacy had been treated “preferentially for the second year running — the pharmacy funding uplift is the highest across primary care, and higher than that of the overall NHS”.
However, it added that “we are not persuaded that sufficient investment is being made to enable the full and effective introduction of IP within the CPCF, given the workload, enhanced clinical responsibility, clinical governance and infrastructure requirements that it will entail”.
CPE chief executive Janet Morrison added that, as part of the deal, the government has committed to work with CPE on a solution, including “reform of the contract, funding and reimbursement model”.
“That work will be difficult and will take time, but refusing this deal would have put more pharmacies — and the services they provide to patients and communities — at greater risk,” she added.
At the Westminster Hall debate, Kinnock said: “Our latest deal with the sector shows that this government is in it for the long haul, that we’re fully committed to putting pharmacies right at the heart of getting our NHS back on its feet and fit for the future.”
He added that community pharmacies are “a massive untapped resource”, and that “the NHS we are building puts them front and centre of care in every community”. Among other things, he said that community pharmacies “will be vital in making sure that vaccine coverage reaches every part of our country”.
However, Kinnock said that “many pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are not working with technology that is equal to their skill, their talent or their ambition”. He noted the roll-out of the NHS prescription tracker, and said that “this year, we want to make digital access even easier, with stronger links between pharmacies and general practice, as we build stronger neighbourhood health teams across every community”.
The session, moved by Rachel Gilmour, Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and Minehead, included contributions from Sadik al-Hassan, Labour MP for North Somerset and chair of the All‑Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy, who called the contract funding increase “a down payment on a brighter future. It is just a start, not an end point”.
“The 10.3% uplift is of course very welcome, but it comes against a backdrop of around a 9% yearly increase in costs”, al-Hassan said. “Pharmacy First and the inclusion of independent prescribing are good starting points, but the next step is to map out what we want Pharmacy First to look like through to 2030 and beyond. It cannot simply remain a pharmacist-led service for a small number of conditions.”
In her opening remarks, Gilmour said: “The national picture for community pharmacies is one of an incredibly fragile system.” She added: “The community pharmacy network has had to absorb real term cuts of 30% in government funding. For most community pharmacies, NHS funding accounts for over 90 to 95% of their annual income.
“That is simply not a sustainable business model. It is a slow strangulation.”
While Gilmour said she welcomed the funding settlement, she added: “Without a commitment to continued above-inflation funding increases year on year, patients will face an acceleration of service reductions and closures.”
