Published: 23/08/23

New contractors will be eligible to receive on a monthly basis:

* Dispensing Pool payment – special arrangements for contractors recently added to the Pharmaceutical List, and/or with incomplete dispensing history, or whose dispensing pool payment would otherwise fall below a minimum target

A minimum monthly payment of £750 will apply for dispensing months from April 2023 onwards in respect of eligible contractors who were not on the list, or who did not have a predecessor contractor on the list for the relevant prior reference period used when calculating dispensing pool payments. That minimum payment would then remain in place until the contractor has three consecutive months of dispensing activity to be used for the determination of the dispensing pool payment.

However, where a contractor recently added to the list considers that the £750 payment does not fairly reflect their share of overall dispensing activity in the first 3 months of operation, they may make a specific request to ISD within 9 months of the dispensing months concerned for a retrospective adjustment calculation to be carried out. This would establish whether an adjustment calculated by reference to the previous quarter’s dispensing pool would be appropriate. Where the total amount due is less than the £750 already paid no further action will be taken. Where the amount due exceeds £750, an adjustment will be made as soon as practical for the dispensing months concerned and if necessary, as a retrospective payment. This provision is backdated to apply for payments related to dispensing month April 2023 onwards.

For brand new contractors the advance payment will be calculated as follows:

• Month 1 advance = (no.of days open/31) x £18,000

• For contractors who opened on the 1st of the month, their month 2 and subsequent advance will be calculated as % of the average payment set for all contractors for that month, taken from the average of the number of actual months which data is available.

• For contractors who opened after the 1st of the month, their month 2 advance will equal: (no. of days in month/31) x £18,000; month 3 and subsequent advances until a 12 month history is available will be calculated as % of the average payment set for all contractors for that month, taken from the average of the number of actual months which data is available. Once 12 months data is available, the advance will always be calculated using the latest 12 months average payment.