Agreement on the total budget allocated to community pharmacy has got 'stuck' between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England (NHSE), Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has claimed.

The negotiator has called for 'an urgent release of money', regardless of when negotiations are completed.

In a video message to contractors published yesterday, CPE chief executive Janet Morrison said she understood that agreement on how much funding the community pharmacy sector can be offered ‘has got stuck in the negotiations between the Department of Health finance team and the NHS England finance team'.

The two organisations are currently trying to agree on how the DHSC budget should be allocated across NHS priorities, including the need to cover the cost of recent employment cost increases for eligible NHS organisations, Ms Morrison suggested.

And she added that she has written a ‘strongly worded’ letter to Wes Streeting and to Stephen Kinnock ‘to convey to them the severity of the impact of waiting for a re-commencement of negotiations’ and calling for ‘an urgent release of money, whether or not we had concluded all of our negotiations’.

The employment cost increases announced in the recent Autumn budget will be a 'huge additional cost' for pharmacies, sector leaders have said.

But while the government has committed to increasing funding for some NHS organisations to cover these costs, no such arrangement has been announced for pharmacies.

Minister Stephen Kinnock said in October that finding a sustainable funding solution for community pharmacy is a ‘matter of urgency’ for the government.

DHSC has been approached for comment.