Pharmacy: Finance
(asked on 25th February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has provided to community pharmacies through retained margin in the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework in real terms accounting for inflation in each year since 2016.
The following table shows the nominal and real terms funding through retained margin as part of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) each year since 2015/16:
Year | Nominal value | Gross domestic product deflator at December 2025 | Real terms value 2025/26 prices |
2015/16 | £800,000,000 | 72.46 | £1020,000,000 |
2016/17 | £800,000,000 | 73.91 | £1009,000,000 |
2017/18 | £800,000,000 | 74.85 | £1001,000,000 |
2018/19 | £800,000,000 | 76.55 | £988,000,000 |
2019/20 | £800,000,000 | 78.57 | £971,000,000 |
2020/21 | £800,000,000 | 82.68 | £939,000,000 |
2021/22 | £800,000,000 | 82.87 | £937,000,000 |
2022/23 | £800,000,000 | 88.70 | £890,000,000 |
2023/24 | £800,000,000 | 93.38 | £853,000,000 |
2024/25 | £850,000,000 | 97.14 | £874,000,000 |
2025/26 | £900,000,000 | 100 | £900,000,000 |
Notes:
- for 2022/23 and 2023/24, an additional £50 million in funding was provided via writing off over-delivery; and
- for 2025/26, an additional £193 million in funding was provided via writing off over-delivery.
The Department, along with Community Pharmacy England, assess the medicines margin retained through a quarterly ‘medicines margin survey’. Where the medicine margin survey shows under or over delivery against the funding provided, then adjustments are made to reimbursement prices to bring it line with the allowed medicine margin as per CPCF.