Pharmacy contractors will already be aware that a new approach to allocating the funding has been introduced in the Part 2 Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) for 2020/21, with each domain having points allocated to it, but these vary dependent on the prescription volume of the contractor.

This change has been introduced to better recognise the varying workload and hence costs incurred by different contractors complying with the requirements of the scheme. While some costs will be common to contractors of all sizes, most of the elements of this new scheme involve variability of costs related to the number of staff employed at the pharmacy and staffing levels generally vary in relation to prescription volume.

Each PQS domain has a varying number of points dependent on the participating contractor’s total prescription volume in 2019/20; each contractor is placed in one of the six volume bands set out in the tables below, based on their 2019/20 prescription volume.

So that contractors can be sure of which volume band they sit within the scheme, the NHSBSA has now published their allocation of contractors to the bands.

Check which band your pharmacy falls within

Find out more about the Part 2 PQS