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Exclusive: A Swindon contractor has told P3pharmacy the NHS Business Services Authority has “stonewalled” him and is refusing to pay out £1,600 for Pharmacy First consultations that it agrees his team completed. 

Graham Jones (pictured), owner of Shrivenham Pharmacy, said the dispute concerns Pharmacy First consultations in May – the first month in which ‘late’ claims after the five-day submission window had to be made by the end of the following month, a change that replaced the previous three-month ‘grace period’ set out in the Drug Tariff.  

Mr Jones said his team believed it had submitted the claim correctly within the five-day window. He shared with P3pharmacy a screenshot of the NHSBSA’s ‘Manage your service’ portal (MYS) that indicates claims for prescriptions “and other activities” were submitted successfully.  

However, the NHSBSA claims not to have received the Pharmacy First submission from the pharmacy and says claims for the service do not come under ‘other activities’.  

Mr Jones said the website is “ambiguous and misleading,” particularly in the context of contractors facing significant amounts of red tape on a daily basis. He has raised the issue with pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock as well as local MP Charlie Maynard.  

Notwithstanding the dispute over the MYS submission, the NHSBSA acknowledges that the pharmacy completed over 30 Pharmacy First consultations in May and that these were all reported via HxConsult at the time. 

“Everything has been stonewalled,” said Mr Jones, who now faces a shortfall of roughly £1,600. “I've had to go back to the NHSBSA three times before they would escalate it up the line.”

The NHSBSA “eventually” advised him to contact Community Pharmacy England. “They said, that’s ridiculous, and sent me to the ICB, which I did get a more detailed response from – but in effect referred us back to the NHSBSA.”

“It seems to be bureaucracy ruling common sense,” said Mr Jones. “None of the people responsible for this policy understand community pharmacy. We’re not businesses with big admin departments, these are often family-run firms having to deal with a multitude of different issues simultaneously."

He added: “They’re providing a website that is misleading, they're not understanding the nature of pharmacy and they've got a policy that is so asymmetrically biased towards themselves – to justify it as efficiency is unreasonable in itself.”

“Margins are so tight,” he said, with “most pharmacies struggling to stay in the black – and then you’re hit by something like this which is completely unreasonable”.  

He described Pharmacy First as a success for his business, commenting: “The professional satisfaction of being able to sort someone out there and then, it's brilliant particularly for something like shingles. 

“But clearly something like this is very demotivating.” 

He said that with NHSBSA data showing a sharp drop-off in Pharmacy First consultations in May, he was concerned that other businesses may also be affected. 

The NHSBSA told P3pharmacy it was unable to comment on individual cases but said that as an arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care it is “unable to make payment for claims that do not meet the rule DHSC has set in the Drug Tariff”. 

It added: “In June 2025, NHS England changed the length of time that contractors have when declaring their Pharmacy First claims. Previously, contractors had a three-month grace period for declaring their claims, but late submissions are now only accepted if made within one month of the date by which the claim should have been declared.”

Community Pharmacy England said: “CPE holds the NHSBSA to account on pharmacy payments and will lend support to any pharmacy owner who has a concern. 

“We also continue to seek ways to improve the payment system, to make it more responsive to contractor needs, and a late claim option is under consideration for the next round of CPCF negotiations.”

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