The New Medicines Service (NMS) is being extended to enable community pharmacies to continue to provide this service through to the 31st March 2014. The necessary amendments to The Pharmaceutical Services (Advanced and Enhanced Services) (England) Directions 2013 are expected to be published in the January Drug Tariff. The negotiations on overall community pharmacy contractual framework funding, which are ongoing with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, will consider the longer-term future of NMS.
A further amendment allows the commissioning of an Emergency Supply Service by NHS England Area Teams (ATs). Teams will now be able, where appropriate, to commission this service from community pharmacists over the winter period as part of community escalation arrangements in line with ‘Community Pharmacy – helping with winter pressures’ which was published on 2nd December 2013. Prior to the amendment, it was only possible for ATs to commission an Emergency Supply service from community pharmacies using a Patient Group Direction (PGD) as the legal basis for making the supply of an urgently required medicine. The PSNC recommends that where an emergency supply service is commissioned from community pharmacies, it is done so as an Enhanced service using the provision in the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.