Changes to New Medicine Service (NMS) payments aim to ‘simplify’ the process for contractors, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has said.

Previously, pharmacy owners were paid varying amounts depending on how much of their target they had achieved.

From this month, they will receive a £14 fee per initial NMS intervention, and £14 per follow up NMS consultation.

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'As part of the negotiations it was agreed that from 1 April 2025, the payment structure for NMS would be simplified to a £14 fee for each intervention or follow up consultation provided to the patient, i.e. a total fee of £28 will be paid if the pharmacy has undertaken both the intervention and follow up consultations,' the negotiator said.

Each should be claimed as an ‘NMS intervention’ on NHSBSA’s Manage Your Services (MYS) portal, until the system is updated to allow initial and follow-up interventions to be recorded as such.

For instance, if a pharmacy completes an initial and follow-up intervention with a patient within a month, they should submit a claim for two NMS consultation payments by the 5th day of the following month.

If the two consultations straddle more than one month, the claims should be submitted together at the end of the second month.

If the pharmacist has conducted the initial consultation and has tried and failed to contact the patient for the follow up, they can claim for one NMS consultation at £14.

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CPE stressed: ‘This change to the funding structure does not change the existing service requirement to undertake the intervention consultation and to try to contact the patient to undertake the follow up consultation.

‘A £14 payment can only be claimed if a consultation has been undertaken with the patient.

‘If the patient cannot be contacted by the pharmacy to undertake a consultation, the fee for that consultation cannot be claimed.’

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The 2025/26 contractual framework also set out that NMS cannot be subcontracted to other providers.

CPE said this change would only be effective after the directions for the service have been amended, adding that it would ‘alert pharmacy owners when this happens’.