Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Prime Minister’s comments of 10 February 2021 on reimbursing community pharmacies for additional costs incurred during the covid-19 outbreak, whether he plans to convert into grants the advanced payments given to community pharmacies to support them with covid-19-related costs.

The Department has no plans to do so. The related issues including higher drug prices, higher prescription volumes and delays in payments have now been resolved. The Department has agreed with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee that pharmacies can claim for specified additional COVID-19 costs incurred between 1 March 2020 and 31 March 2021 and that the £370 million extra advance payments will be recovered from community pharmacies from October 2021 to March 2022.