The full details of the 2023/24 funding agreement between Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) and the Scottish Government have now been released, including guaranteed funding for the sector of almost £300m.

The negotiator said that this ‘mutually beneficial deal’ would help support the community pharmacy network after a ‘relentless and punishing 2022/23 in terms of finance, workforce and workload challenges’.

But it said that the settlement does not provide the conditions ‘for a year of service growth as we have enjoyed in the recent past’.

Previous commitments such as a new bundle of patient group directions (PGDs) to treat hayfever through Pharmacy First would still come to fruition, ‘but in the main, pharmacy teams will focus on recuperation and consolidation of our already world-leading community pharmacy service offering’, CPS said.

The settlement comes after protracted negotiations, which CPS said ‘created an unfortunate period of uncertainty and insecurity’ for its members, but ‘were ultimately necessary to secure a more stable financial outlook’ for Scotland’s community pharmacy network.

The new community pharmacy funding package includes a 6% increase on last year’s Global Sum, bringing it to the value of £219.533m.

This, along with £80m in mapped income to support service delivery, totals a guaranteed funding settlement of £299.533m.

And the non-global sum funding pot, used for additional payments such as stoma dispensing, will remain at £1.3m.

The community pharmacy sector in Scotland will be able to retain £100m in guaranteed minimum income (known as retained margin in England) – an increase of £15.95m (19%) from last year.

This will be monitored throughout the year, with ‘further action to support contractor cashflow’ to be considered ‘if appropriate’. CPS also said that further detail on margin sharing will be provided in the coming weeks.

Contractors will also receive a one-off payment from an agreed pot of £1.667m, to reflect that there was no drug tariff adjustment for April 2023.

And dispensing pool and care home payments will be combined into one dispensing pool from 1 October 2023.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government commented: ‘Our financial settlement with Community Pharmacy Scotland for 2023/24 for the provision of NHS Pharmaceutical Care Services will see the largest increase made to the remuneration Global Sum to date, an increase of 6%.

‘Alongside other components, this will provide an overall funding package to a minimum guaranteed income of almost £400 million.’