A disagreement between the organisation representing Scotland's community pharmacy operators and the Scottish government, which threatened to trigger cuts in services to patients, has ended after ministers put a new offer on the table.

In a brief statement, Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) said:

“Further to the negotiations on the financial settlement for 2023/24, we are pleased to confirm that an improved written offer has been received and accepted by your Community Pharmacy Scotland board.

“We would like to thank colleagues for all your support throughout the negotiations, with special mention to the teams who appeared on TV to highlight the situation of the community pharmacy network. Thank you.”

A month ago, CPS had expressed exasperation saying it needed to ‘sound the alarm’ because the sector was in serious financial trouble, and warned serious consideration was now being given to taking delivery of the Pharmacy First free consultation service out of any future national agreement.

In its June statement, CPS said there had been "no sign of ministers making a serious offer” despite the gap between the cost of medicines and the amounts reimbursed being so wide that many pharmacy owners were building up debt to keep their doors open.

The apparent stalemate between CPS and government negotiators in June led to an organisation representing frontline pharmacists, the Pharmacist Defence Association, suggesting that it should be represented in negotiations to help achieve resolution.

After the CPS first rejected the offer, the Scottish government said that it would be willing to add an additional £20m to the value of the Scottish drug tariff in addition to what it said was £25m of additional funding already provided for the sector over the past five years.

Neither the government nor CPS has given any details publicly of the new offer.

Earlier this month, in a further example of the difficulties of finding enough money to match the costs of delivering national contracts, Scotland's non-council care home operators made the ‘extremely reluctant decision’ to accept a 6% uplift in the National Care Home Contract after protracted negotiations.

That sector’s representative organisation, Scottish Care, says many operators have found the gap between costs and funding means they can no longer afford to stay in business, leading to the largest rate of care home closures – around one a week – ever experienced in Scotland.

Read more: Community pharmacy "sounding the alarm"; Third voice needed to end pharmacy deadlock; £20m pharmacy cash injection small amid rising costs; Community Pharmacy rejects funding deal;

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