The community pharmacy home delivery service in England has come to an end for clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) patients today (31 March), the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) has said.

This comes as 3.7 million people in England and Wales have been told that after today they will no longer need to shield from Covid-19.

A letter sent to CEV patients over the past few weeks said shielding has been paused due to falling virus infection rates.

The letter also advised patients that they may still want to ‘ask friends, family or volunteers’ to collect medicines for them, adding that the NHS Volunteer Responders programme was still available.

If contractors receive requests for medicines deliveries from CEV patients, they must signpost them to the NHS Volunteer Responders programme if they do not know of anyone who can collect their medicines on their behalf, PSNC said in its update.

However, the update also reminded contractors that the pandemic medicine delivery service is still ongoing for those who have been told by NHS Test and Trace that they are required to self-isolate.

Community pharmacy contractors can claim payment for the delivery of medicines to CEV patients under the community pharmacy home delivery service on the Manage Your Service (MYS) portal.

The service, first launched in April last year, has been restarted on a number of occasions over the last 12 months in response to national and local lockdown restrictions.