Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of the funding for pharmacy services under the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care was spent on administration fees since May 2023.

The Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care, announced in May 2023, announced an allocation up to £645 million up until March 2024. This supported the launch of Pharmacy First as well as the expansion of the Blood Pressure Checking service and Pharmacy Contraception Service.

Funding from this allocation has been used to pay fees for the Pharmacy First, Blood Pressure Check or Contraception service delivery or invested in the development of IT infrastructure to enable the safe and effective delivery of the services and a mass media campaign to help increase awareness and public engagement. None of the allocated funding has been used for administrating the new services.

The staff costs associated with the development of service specifications, governance and monitoring, and agreeing payments to contractors have been met by extant Departmental and NHS England budgets.