Drug Tariff update January 2022 – Transitional Payment adjustments
From 1 January 2022 changes to the payment levels for the Transitional Payment are being made. These changes aim to reduce the overall level of fees delivered to pharmacy contractors through Transitional Payments within the financial year 2021/22 by £5m, so that the agreed amount of CPCF funding is delivered over the course of the year. The changes to the Transitional Payments have been agreed by PSNC based on our analysis of funding delivery and the latest projections for the year. Fee levels are kept under constant review in order to ensure the full delivery of funding agreed under the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework.
The Transitional Payment was introduced as part of the five-year funding agreement in 2019/20 and recognises pharmacy contractors’ work to invest in and improve dispensing efficiency, including the training of staff in anticipation of legislative change, as well as the transformation needed in community pharmacy to deliver the vision set out in the five-year agreement. It is expected that the Transitional Payment will reduce over the course of the agreement if new services come on stream and funding is allocated to the related service fees.
From 1 January 2022 pharmacy contractors who dispense 101 prescription items or more in any month will receive a monthly Transitional Payment which consists of two separate payments – a dispensing payment and a service payment as set out in the table below.
| Number of items per month from 1 January 2022 | Monthly dispensing payment of the Transitional Payment from 1 January 2022 | Monthly Service Payment of the Transitional Payment from 1 January 2022 |
| 0 – 100 | £0 | £0 |
| 101 – 2,500 | £60 | £60 |
| 2,501 – 5,000 | £699 | £699 |
| 5,001 – 12,500 | £882 | £882 |
| 12,501 – 19,167 | £956 | £956 |
| 19,168+ | £993 | £993 |
For the pharmacy contractors to receive the monthly service payment of the transitional payment they must have:
- claimed for at least one New Medicine Service (NMS) in the previous month; and
- been registered to provide the Community Pharmacy Consultation Service (CPCS) on the Manage Your Service (MYS) platform for greater than or equal to half of the number of full days in the previous month.
