To ask the Minister of Health to detail any assessment his Department has made of whether current community pharmacy payment and reimbursement arrangements remain fit for purpose.

My Department has a statutory duty to ensure fair, accurate and prompt payment for HSC commissioned pharmaceutical services, and the Northern Ireland Drug Tariff sets out the remuneration and reimbursement arrangements for medicines supplied by community pharmacies.

Since April 2018, funding has increased by almost £60m (57%). This is the highest level of funding to date and is comparable with the rest of the UK.

Funding for community pharmacy includes payment for dispensing services and provision of other pharmacy services to the public.

The prices of medicines fluctuate daily, and with over 45m items dispensed in 2024/25, its simply not practical to reimburse pharmacies with the exact amount they paid to purchase each item. That means, at an individual prescription level, pharmacies may sometimes receive less than they paid for the product, and at other times more than they paid.

An annual margin survey is completed to ensure that, on average, the reimbursement arrangements for community pharmacy cover the cost of purchasing medicines plus a guaranteed level of margin, or ‘retained purchase profit’, meaning that HSC dispensing should be a profitable activity overall. For 2025/26, the retained minimum margin threshold has been increased from £31.5m to £34m.

The actual annual margin achieved by community pharmacies in Northern Ireland has significantly exceeded the minimum threshold. And importantly, unlike other UK regions, any excess in margin is not recouped, meaning additional income for pharmacy contractors above the agreed financial envelope.