By Dispex
When community pharmacies cannot source a drug at or below the reimbursement price as set out in the
Drug Tariff, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) can introduce a price concession at the
request of Community Pharmacy England. A price concession can be requested for any drugs listed in
Part VIIIA, Part VIIIB and Part VIIID of the Drug Tariff. For any drugs granted price concessions,
contractors are automatically reimbursed at the new prices for that month only.
Price Concessions are published throughout the month and sometimes after the month’s end. The price
concession applies only to those scripts sent for pricing within that particular month. Price concessions
apply to dispensing doctors. Community pharmacy price concessions are Zero-discounted, but
unfortunately dispensing doctors have the full clawback applied to the concession price.
Sometimes price concessions are rolled over into the next month, so the price of that particular product
will be the concession price and not the price as published in the Drug Tariff.
Price concessions are published by the NHSBSA via this webpage
Retrospective top-up payments
Top up payments will be made for those concession lines where data subsequently identifies that the
original concession prices granted were inappropriately low. The top-up payments will be applied
automatically to all pharmacies AND dispensaries who have dispensed the affected items. Top-up
payments will be paid on a quarterly basis, for products granted a concession price three quarters
before. A new section has been added to the Drug Tariff, Part VIIIE. Items which are eligible for
top-up payments will be listed in this part.
Items dispensed in the following months Top-up payment month
April – June January in the following year
July – September April in the following year
October – December July in the following year
January – March October in same year
