NHS England (NHSE) has said it cannot share any further details on the economic review of community pharmacy while contract negotiations are ongoing.

The review, promised as part of the 2022-24 pharmacy contract, aims to find out the 'full economic costs of delivering NHS pharmaceutical services' and whether NHS community pharmacy businesses are sustainable under the current funding model.

Last week, community pharmacy representatives called for the economic review of the sector to be published immediately for the sake of transparency in contract negotiations.

The Independent Pharmacies Association (IPA) and National Pharmacy Association (NPA), which together represent the independent contractors that make up around two-thirds of the network in England, said the review should be published now so the sector could understand how any funding offer was arrived at.

But an NHSE spokesperson told The Pharmacist this week that it was 'unable to give any further details while consultations are ongoing with Community Pharmacy England over 2024/25 and 2025/26 funding arrangements'.

They clarified that 'all parties to the consultation have access to the details of the work to date'.

And they said that NHSE was still 'committed to publishing this important report'.

NHSE has commissioned Frontier Economics and IQVIA to collect data from pharmacy owners across the sector and carry out the review.

According to Community Pharmacy England (CPE), work began in April 2024 and final outputs were to be expected in 'early 2025'.

And Chris Pilsbury, senior director of UK information offerings at IQVIA, told the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) conference last month to 'look out for' the report in 'January or early February'.