Website of the Department of Health

Implementation of the Health Act 2006: Fees for applications to provide NHS pharmaceutical services in England

The Department proposes to amend the 2005 Regulations to implement the provisions of the Health Act 2006 to enable reasonable charges to be introduced for applications concerning a chemist’s inclusion on a NHS Primary Care Trust list. The charges will be determined by means of Directions from the Secretary of State to PCTs

The Department is therefore formally inviting the views of NHS Employers, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and the British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) on these proposals. As this is the first such consultation, the Department is publishing its proposals in full, including the associated draft legislation. Primary Care Trusts, pharmaceutical contractors and other interested parties may therefore wish to comment on the proposals set out here.

Alongside this consultation document, we are also publishing these supporting documents:

• a partial Regulatory Impact Assessment and Competition Assessment;
•  the draft Regulations to implement this provision;
•  the draft Directions which set out the proposed fees payable; and
• draft information for PCTs explaining more about how the provisions will work in practice.

• Download consultation paper (PDF, 67K)
• Download Draft Directions for consultation (PDF, 22K)
• Download regulations and consultation (PDF, 26K)
• Download Partial RIA and Competition Assesment (PDF, 60K)
• Download information for primary care trusts (PDF, 31K)