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Exclusive: Ninety-seven per cent of the annual £215m Pharmacy First budget was spent in the 2025-26 financial year, new figures reveal.

Data obtained by P3pharmacy from NHS England under the freedom of information act shows that out of the £215m announced in 2025-26 to support Pharmacy First and other Primary Care Access Recovery Plan services, a total of £209.4m was spent, in contrast to previous years that saw a significant underspend. 

The largest share of this - £121.5m, or 56.5 per cent – was spent on Pharmacy First consultation fees and fixed payments, with £52.5m spent on the Pharmacy Hypertension Case-Finding Service and £35.4m spent on the Pharmacy Contraception Service.

The remaining underspend of £5.6m “was not reinvested within community pharmacy and formed part of the wider NHSE financial position,” P3pharmacy was told.

This was because the Pharmacy First budget was not included in the sector’s contractual framework “and was instead held centrally and released to integrated care boards in year based on activity delivered by contractors,” said NHSE. 

NHSE added: “However, under the 2026/27 contractual arrangements Pharmacy First is now integrated into the CPCF, which ensures that the funding- and any future underspends- now forms part of a guaranteed pot for the sector.”

The national commissioner told P3pharmacy its allocation figures are based on reported activity from April 2025 to January 2026 combined with forecast activity for February and March 2026. 

Community Pharmacy England funding director Mike Dent told P3pharmacy: “Since we first secured the Pharmacy First budget from the Primary Care Recovery Plan, we knew pharmacy had to ‘use it or lose it’.

“As well as providing for the new Pharmacy First Service, we worked in ways for it to support the Hypertension Case-Finding and Contraception Services as key clinical services.

“Similarly, negotiations for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 funding settlements had also sought to maximise the flow of that Pharmacy First pot into the sector.

“For 2026-27, this pot has been combined with the core CPCF sum, guaranteeing the full amount to the community pharmacy sector and removing that risk of underspend.”