Minister for health and social services Vaughan Gething says a further £3.5m is to be provided to community pharmacy contractors in Wales to meet additional costs incurred during the pandemic. 

Mr Gething says the new funding is additional to the £5.6m announced just before Christmas and the total meets Community Pharmacy Wales' formal proposal in full. “This means new money of £9.1m will have been allocated this financial year in recognition of the vital role pharmacies played during the height of the pandemic in all our communities, the length and breadth of Wales,” the minister said. 

CPW chair Mark Griffiths welcomed the funding, saying: “Community pharmacy contractors across Wales are absolutely delighted that the Welsh Government has met our claim for additional work delivered in dealing with Covid pandemic during the Spring of 2020. This significant additional spending, over and above the community pharmacy contract, reflects and appreciates the hard work and real expenditure made by the network during the most challenging period in the history of community pharmacy.”

In his statement, Mr Gething also said that following a successful pilot of vaccine delivery in north Wales, he wanted to see involvement of community pharmacy increasing over the next few weeks. “On 1 March the chief executive of the NHS wrote to health board chief executives advising them to put in place arrangements to contract with community pharmacies in their areas which are able to deliver a minimum of 100 appointments each week, managed through the health boards’ established booking systems.”

Mr Gething also confirmed the deferment of further repayments against the £55m advance payment in Wales until the 2021-22 financial year.