About the scheme
The Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) forms part of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF). PQS is designed to support delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan and reward community pharmacies that deliver quality criteria in three quality dimensions:
- clinical effectiveness
- patient safety
- patient experience
PQS 2026/27
If you’re participating in the PQS 2026/27, you will need to declare your performance against the quality domains on a day of your choosing during the declaration window.
The total funding for PQS 2026/27 is £20 million. The funding will be divided between qualifying pharmacies based on the number of points they have achieved. Each point will be worth between £64.20 and £128.40.
Payments will be made to all eligible contractors depending on the band you are placed in and how many domains you have declared you are meeting.
If you fail to meet the gateway criterion, you will not be eligible for the PQS 2026/27.
Aspiration payment declaration
As with the 2025/26 scheme, an aspiration payment declaration is planned for PQS 2026/27 whereby you can declare and indicate which domains you intend to achieve.
The aspiration payment must be claimed between 9am on 13 July 2026 to 11:59pm on 28 July 2026 through MYS.
The aspiration payment is optional and not claiming it will not impact on your ability to claim payment for the PQS 2026/27.
The aspiration payment for each domain is paid on the understanding that you will have made a declaration within the declaration period and that you will have completed the PQS 2026/27 before 11:59pm on 26 February 2027, stating you will meet the conditions of the relevant domains. If you do not achieve the full number of points you have claimed for, payment issued for the remainder will be reclaimed.
There is no requirement to have claimed for a previous PQS to claim an aspiration payment for PQS 2026/27.
The maximum number of points you can receive an aspiration payment for is 80% of the number of points within your band.
The value of the point for the aspiration payment is set at £64.20, the minimum value of a point for the PQS 2026/27.
Pharmacies that claim will have their aspiration payment paid on 1 September 2026.
Pharmacy bandings
For the PQS 2026/27, the maximum number of points for the Medicines Optimisation and Patient Safety domain is 15, and the Professional Practice domain has 15 points allocated to it. There are different points allocated for contractors in Band 1.
This better reflects the workload of meeting the PQS 2026/27 requirements for different contractors.
Gateway criterion
The aim of this gateway criterion is to ensure that all pharmacies taking part in the scheme meet all the terms of service requirements.
Pharmacy owners must complete the questionnaire to evaluate the value of the Palliative and End of Life Care criteria. The questionnaire will be accessible on this page from August 2026 and must be submitted by the end of 31 December 2026 to meet the gateway criteria.
In addition, as soon as possible after 1 June 2026 and by the end of 31 March 2027, the contractor must have updated NHS Profile Manager to show they are a ‘Pharmacy palliative care medication stockholder’ if they routinely hold the 16 palliative and end of life critical medicines listed in the Drug Tariff and can support local access to parenteral haloperidol.
Contractors with profiles that cannot currently be updated via NHS Profile Manager may still meet this criterion and update the Directory of Services (DoS) profile by contacting their Regional DoS lead. Contact details are available at: https:// servicefinder.nhs.uk/help/contact-your-regional-DoS-team
By the end of 31 March 2027, contractors must have an action plan in place to use when they do not have the required stock of the 16 palliative and end-of-life critical medicines and/or parenteral haloperidol available for a patient.
To meet the Gateway criteria, all contractors must have this action plan irrespective of whether they do or do not routinely stock the 16 palliative and end-of-life critical medicines listed in the Drug Tariff.
Pharmacy owners will not be required to make a declaration for this gateway criterion as this will be verified by a post payment review of the pharmacy owner's declaration.
Pharmacy owners should note that they will not be able to claim payment for the quality criteria during the declaration period if the gateway criterion has not been met.
Professional Practice - Pharmacy First consultations - Clinical Services Audit
Contractors must complete a clinical audit, which will be on the quality of Pharmacy First clinical pathways consultations to develop an action plan for improving practice. In addition to a pharmacist completing the audit, contractors will be expected to ensure the pharmacist completes a peer discussion (approximately 1 to 2 hours) focused on reviewing the findings of the audit and the action plan, with a ‘buddy’ pharmacist.
The audit must be carried out with a minimum of 10 patients. Contractors should make a record of the start and end date of the audit as they will be required to enter this information into the MYS application when they make their declaration. Contractors should choose a period in 2026/27 that achieves the minimum number of patients with sufficient time to complete the audit and peer discussion and their declaration from 1 February 2027.
Contractors must complete the audit, action plan and peer discussion no later than 31 March 2027. Further details of the 2026/27 clinical audit will be published and reported on the MYS data collection tool, which will be accessible on this page from August 2026.
Declaration data
February 2025 declaration data (CSV: 639KB)February 2024 declaration data (CSV: 1.1MB) February 2023 declaration data (CSV: 460KB)February 2022 declaration data (CSV: 534KB)February 2021 declaration data (CSV: 477KB)February 2020 declaration data (CSV: 533KB)February 2019 declaration data (CSV: 1.5MB)June 2018 declaration data (CSV: 2.4MB)November 2017 declaration data (CSV: 2.3MB)April 2017 declaration data (CSV: 2.2MB)
If you need to contact us
Send any questions relating to the PQS by email at [email protected]