Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the length of funding periods of pharmacies.

We have now concluded the consultation on funding for 2024/25 and 2025/26, and have agreed with Community Pharmacy England to increase the community pharmacy contractual framework to £3.073 billion. This deal represents the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service, at over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26. This shows a first step in delivering stability for the future and a commitment to rebuilding the sector.

Government spending is normally agreed through spending reviews, and we are currently planning the Spending Review which will cover budgets beyond 2025/26.

We agree that funding agreements that cover multiple years can bring certainty for contractors and support investment decisions, but it is also difficult to flex such agreements to take into account unforeseen events, as demonstrated in the last five-year deal for pharmacy.