The requirement to provide one Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) consultation per month as part of the ‘bundling’ requirements to achieve a Pharmacy First fixed monthly payment will not go ahead from 1st October 2025 as originally planned. Furthermore, NHSE will review the use of home blood pressure monitoring.
Malcolm Harrison, Chief Executive of the CCA said:
“We are pleased to see that the Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) bundling requirement has been delayed.
This follows the CCA’s previous analysis which found that as of February 2025, only around 30% of pharmacies were meeting the planned bundling requirements.1
Our latest analysis of the NHS’ Dispensing Contractors Data2 for June 2025 shows that there has been some progress. Almost 45% of all contractors have now delivered at least one pharmacy first consultation, one Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) consultation and an ABPM check.
In June, the initial bundling requirements came into effect. 5,902 pharmacies delivered 20 or more consultations needed to be eligible for the full or reduced fixed payment. However, 523 of these had not delivered a PCS or blood pressure check in the last 12 months and were assumed not to be signed up to provide the service.
This meant those pharmacies lost out on over £430,000 in fixed payments because of the initial bundling requirements.
Almost 1,800 pharmacies which met all other bundling requirements in June 2025 did not deliver at least 1 ABPM. This would have meant missed threshold payments worth £1.5m.
We are also pleased that NHS England are considering the inclusion of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring in addition to ABPM, as the CCA had recommended. This simple change would ensure more pharmacies are able to deliver the service and receive threshold payments which are vital to ensuring that pharmacies are able to stay afloat”.
References:
1 – CCA, Challenge of providing Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) could mean reduced access to Pharmacy First for patients, 2 June 2025
2 – NHS Business Services’ Authority, Dispensing Contractors Data for June 2025, published September 2025