Many services provided by community pharmacists are commissioned locally according to the needs of the area. Locally commissioned community pharmacy services can be contracted via a number of different routes and by different commissioners, including local authorities (LAs), NHS England’s Regions and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

As a result of commissioning, a written document, often incorporating a Service Level Agreement (SLA), will be agreed between the parties. (From 1 April 2014 however CCGs commissioning community services are required to use the NHS Standard Contract – more information about the NHS Standard Contract can be found here).

The PSNC briefing below provides information on Service Level Agreements.

PSNC Briefing 026/15: Contracts and Service Level Agreements

For the purpose of this briefing, a simple SLA is explained, which may be sufficient for some agreements between commissioners and individual pharmacy contractors.

Appendix 1 describes the terms to be found in an SLA.

Appendix 2  contains a simple SLA.

If you have any queries on this PSNC Briefing or you require more information, please contact Layla Rahman, Regulations Officer.

To browse other PSNC briefings on services and commissioning click here.