Where is the funding for pharmacies initially implementing the IG requirements coming from?
It is recognised that work relating to the Information Governance Toolkit will represent a cost to community pharmacies. Contractors will be aware of the position for this year’s community pharmacy contractual framework funding. It has been identified through the margin survey for 2008/09 that during 2009/10 contractors are likely to be earning in excess of the £500 million margin that is needed to contribute to the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework funding. Limited reduction in Category M prices were made in the course of 09/10 which means that more than £500m of margin will be delivered. It has been agreed that a proportion of this excess margin will be used to fund some one-off investments that will be required by pharmacies, including implementing the Information Governance requirements. Ongoing discussions indicate that the provisions will cover the costs associated with all individual community pharmacy premises reaching level 2 of all the requirements in the Toolkit.
As part of the 2009/10 community pharmacy contractual framework funding settlement, the Department agreed to make provisions against the excess margin available to contractors as established by the Margins inquiry (ie money already with contractors) over the £500million agreed as part of the CPCF funding. It was identified for a number of one-off costs pharmacy contractors are facing, including information governance. £90 million of investment was agreed for these unavoidable one-off infrastructure costs. Further to detailed negotiations on the work involved, the DH and PSNC agreed that over £23 million of this sum was to support the implementation of the IGT, which equates to over £2000 per pharmacy. PSNC is currently in discussion with the Department of Health to finalise the funding allocation for business continuity planning. To date £12m has been allowed. As with the Information Governance funding, this was paid out through the general funding arrangements rather than via a specif
