NHS Pharmacy First Scotland - Resources & Flow Chart
Published: 20/10/25
The attached document below is a series of key facts, guidance and information relating to the NHS Pharmacy First (Scotland) (PF(S)), the Scottish Community Pharmacy service for the pharmaceutical care of acute common clinical conditions.
Full details of the service should be read and understood by all community pharmacy teams. These can be found in the original circular PCA(P)(2020)13. This detail has subsequently been built upon by various circulars, with all changes and clarifications covered in this document.
Key Facts
This is a summary of the key facts for the service. Full details are in the circular, which should be read in addition to this document
For the NHS PFS Service
From 1st November 2025, the weighting for PGD advice and referral activity will be set to 1. Treatment will continue to be weighted at 5.
An upper threshold for activity claims is being introduced to ensure a more equitable distribution of the existing NHS PFS activity pot.
Where weighted activity exceeds 1,000 in a calendar month, each activity point beyond this threshold will reduce to 0.1. For the avoidance of doubt, this calculation will include claims for Advice, Referral and Treatment for both standard and PGD consultations as well as Advice and Referral claims for the NHS PFS Plus independent prescribing service. Colleagues at NSS Practitioner Services Division (PSD) will work towards an implementation date of December 1st 2025 for this change.
For the NHS PFS Plus Service
The existing base payment of £3,000 per month will continue to be made to the contractor named on a Board’s pharmaceutical list at the first day of that month for each full month the service is made available in the community pharmacy. Where the service starts during the month, claimed activity will be recognised and paid.
Any eligible contractor who wishes to sign up for the service should complete the form found at Annex B of the August 2020 circular. As a reminder, this form must only be submitted, and the service must only be commenced once the prescribing IP is able to prescribe as an IP on the NHS. This will require a prescriber code and, until such times as a prescribing system is developed to support this service electronically, a prescription pad provided by the Health Board for the express purpose of delivering NHS PFS Plus.
Should a contractor have an independent prescriber employed but does not expect to meet the minimum requirement of 25 hours per week of service availability for a minimum of 45 weeks per year, that contractor may now offer the service in line with all other requirements of the service specification and be remunerated for claimed activity. However, the contractor will not be eligible for the monthly £3,000 base PCA (P)(2025) 24 payment. Future arrangements with regards to remuneration for hours of operation will be discussed and agreed between CPS and the Scottish Government in 2026.
From 1 November 2025, contractors delivering the service as specified will also receive an activity payment from a newly established monthly pot for IP prescribing activity, initially agreed at £0.5m. There is no minimum activity threshold set to access the NHS PFS Plus activity payment pot.
As described above, Advice and Referral claims will continue to be paid from the NHS PFS activity pot with a relative weighting of 1. Where an independent prescriber has decided that it is absolutely necessary to treat a common clinical condition, they may submit an NHS Pharmacy First Plus “Supply” claim using the Universal Claim Framework (UCF) to access the newly established pot. Eligible outcomes include where prescriptions are written on NHS Board-issued IP pads for the supply of:
a. a Prescription-Only Medicine (POM)
b. a P/GSL product which does not appear on the NHS PFS approved list
c. a P/GSL product which does appear on the approved list but is being used out with its P or GSL license restrictions
The activity fee will be capped at £40 per intervention and will have a minimum value of £30. The fee rate and weightings will be reviewed after six months and regularly thereafter.
Pharmacy contractors and their teams are reminded of their responsibility to work within established NHS prescribing guidance and local formularies. Contractors must also ensure that consultations resulting in Advice or Referral continue to be recorded to support service monitoring and evaluation.
National Services Scotland has confirmed the described activity model will be implemented for December 2025 dispensing month paid calendar month February 2026. In February 2026, contractors will receive payment for activity carried out in December as well as a retrospective payment for eligible activity from November.
Circular PCA(2025) 18 noted that an activity pot for NHS Pharmacy First Plus would be introduced from October 2025. To ensure the full delivery of the activity pot value for the financial year, a balancing payment will be made to each contractor set against the monthly figure of £0.5m for the month of October 2025 only. This will be distributed as a proportion of the dispensing pool allocation for October, paid in December. Claiming
Each consultation will continue to be recorded on the Universal Claim Framework (UCF) module used to record Pharmacy First Plus (IP) consultations described in Circular PCA(P)(2024)32.
The only change to claiming practice will be for IP consultations where the only treatment provided is a licensed use of a P/GSL item that appears on the NHS PFS approved list. These items should be processed via the Standard service module, with an Advice Only claim for NFS PFS Plus also being submitted to indicate that the consultation was carried out by an IP Pharmacist
NHS Pharmacy First Scotland (NHSPFS) - Patient Journey: Flow Chart
The attached document below is a series of key facts, guidance and information relating to the NHS Pharmacy First (Scotland) (PF(S)), the Scottish Community Pharmacy service for the pharmaceutical care of acute common clinical conditions.