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Just over half of the £645 million the last Conservative Government promised to invest in Pharmacy First and other services two years ago has been spent on the scheme, Community Pharmacy England has revealed.

Pharmacy’s negotiator said the money, announced as part of the Primary Care Recovery Plan in 2023 but which was not ring-fenced unlike the revenue in the pharmacy contract, was allocated for 2023-24 and 2024-25.

CPE estimated £204 million was spent in the first year and £145 million in the second year, taking the total to £349 million and leaving some £296 million.

The £645 million was intended to go towards expanding the pharmacy contraception and hypertension case-finding services, support the “development of IT changes” for all three services, fund marketing for Pharmacy First and enable £112 million in debt to be written off for overpaid fees to pharmacy owners.

CPE also said pharmacies will only receive the full fee for the new medicine service (NMS), which will be expanded to include depression from October, if they complete both the initial and follow-up consultations.

Previously, pharmacies were able to claim the full £28 even if they were unable to complete the follow-up consultation. The fee has now been split into two payments of £14 for each intervention.

Insisting there was “a duty to ensure best use of tax payer funds”, CPE said the Government and NHS England shared NMS data obtained from the NHS Business Service Authority’s online submission system.

The data, CPE said, revealed that in about half of NMS consultations, a follow-up was not completed because the pharmacy was unable to get hold of the patient.

“Any monies not now spent on NMS fees remain in the contract sum and can be spent in other ways, most importantly in the increase to the single activity fee,” CPE said.