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Community pharmacies in Wales will receive a one-off investment of £6m for the 2024/2025 financial year, the Welsh government has announced.
The investment was announced in a letter sent to community pharmacies on 2 April 2025 from Andrew Evans, chief pharmaceutical officer for Wales, and Natalie Proctor, head of pharmacy and prescribing for the Welsh government.
It confirmed that the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership will allocate the funding to pharmacies “through an increase in practice payments equivalent to an additional 30p per prescription item dispensed in January, February and March 2025”.
The letter adds that in return for the additional investment, Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW) has agreed some expansions to the common ailments service (CAS) in Wales, which include making the ‘Sore Throat Test and Treat’ (STTT) service and urinary tract infection service mandatory components of the CAS from 3 June 2025 and 1 October 2025, respectively.
In addition, “pending conclusion of a current piece of explorative policy work”, the CAS will be expanded to include additional ailments — for example, shingles and impetigo.
The letter also said CPW will look into further expansion of pharmacist independent prescribing services.
A spokesperson for CPW said that the stability payment “was proposed by the Welsh government cabinet secretary for health and social care following a meeting with the chair and CEO of CPW”.
“The cabinet secretary acknowledged that the network had over performed expectations on its commitment to deliver the ambitions set out in the Welsh government policy document ‘Presgripswn aewydd a new prescription‘ during a period of significant financial challenges,” the spokesperson added.
“He stated that he wished to help to alleviate current cash flow pressures in advance of the 2025/2026 CPCF [‘Community pharmacy contractual framework’] negotiations, during which he expects the network to present proposals to help address the expected winter pressures later this year.”
The STTT service allows pharmacists to provide antibiotics to adults and children aged five years or over who have clinical symptoms suggestive of a group A streptococcal infection, which is confirmed using a rapid antigen detection test.
The service launched in autumn 2018 in selected pharmacies in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University and Betsi Cadwaladr University health board areas and was the first NHS-funded STTT service in the UK.
A study published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy in November 2024 revealed that 24% of consultations through the STTT service ended with antibiotic supply, compared with 39% of GP consultations.
In March 2025, a report published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy said that NHS England’s ‘Acute Sore Throat Pharmacy First’ scheme was more than twice as likely to supply patients with antibiotics than its Welsh counterpart — with 72.7% of patients in England supplied antibiotics, compared with 29.9% in Wales.
