£300m for community pharmacists to tackle coronavirus

Community pharmacies will receive £300 million to help them carry out essential services amid the coronavirus outbreak.

This includes supporting pharmacies to provide critical services to protect community health by supplying medicines and providing medical advice to patients during a time of unprecedented demand and need.

On 1 April, £200 million was paid to pharmacy contractors, alongside their normal monthly payments from the NHS Business Services Authority. A further £100 million will be allocated on 1 May 2020.

The Department of Health and Social Care has already reduced the number of services that community pharmacy are required to provide to enable them to deliver only the most essential services. But they will continue to receive full funding.

Minister for Health Jo Churchill said: "Every day, community pharmacies carry out critical work to protect the health of the public and support the wider NHS. This is even more important now as we face this unprecedented time. We hugely value the role of the community pharmacy, which is why we are backing them with £300 million of advanced funding to support them as we continue to assess the full additional impact of coronavirus on community pharmacy. To further support pharmacies, we have reduced the services they need to deliver during COVID-19 but have maintained their full funding."

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This story was first published in digitalhealth.net

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