Today at The Pharmacy Show, a new Advanced service to supply eligible patients with COVID-19 Lateral Flow Device (LFD) test kits has been announced.
The service, which is funded outside of the CPCF global sum, will allow eligible patients who have risk factors for progression to severe COVID-19 to obtain LFD test kits from participating community pharmacies.
Access to LFD test kits allows eligible patients to self-test if they have symptoms which suggest they may have COVID-19, with the potential for them to access treatment if the result is positive.
A service fee of £4 + VAT will be paid for each completed transaction of the supply of one box of five COVID-19 LFD test kits and the cost of tests supplied will be paid according to arrangements set out in the November 2023 Drug Tariff.
The service specification is currently going through NHS England’s internal publication process and will be published shortly, but in the meantime, a draft version has been published on the NHSBSA website.
Download the draft service specification from the NHSBSA website
Tomorrow, we will publish support materials to help pharmacy owners and their teams provide the service.
When ready to provide the service, pharmacy owners will be able to sign up on the NHSBSA’s MYS portal from 6th November 2023, after which they will be able to provide the service.
Commenting on the announcement, Alastair Buxton, Director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England, said:
“This is not going to be a high-volume service, but community pharmacy teams are well placed to provide LFD test kits to eligible patients with them having made over 25.5 million supplies of COVID-19 LFD test kits in 2021/22.
“The service is similar to the previous LFD Pharmacy Collect service, so with the resources we will provide for pharmacy owners, we expect it will be straightforward for pharmacy teams to get up and running with the service if the pharmacy owner chooses to provide it.
“At a time when we are seeing COVID-19 cases start to increase, this service along with the COVID-19 vaccination service, demonstrates yet again what a key part of the NHS community pharmacies are.”
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