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Exclusive: Pharmacies in England have had to pay back £1.5m to the NHS since January 2025 after they were unable to verify their claims for Primary Care Recovery Plan services – with almost half

the total amount coming from one pharmacy’s hypertension service claims.

Data obtained by P3pharmacy through a freedom of information request to the NHS Business Services Authority shows that since the beginning of 2025, the health service has recovered £1.4m in hypertension case-finding service fees.

A further £96,720 has been recovered since post-payment verification of Pharmacy First consultations began in October 2025.

No recoveries have yet been made in relation to the pharmacy contraception service, with the NHSBSA saying verification for the service is still underway.

Between January 2025 and September 2026, 234 pharmacies were asked to provide evidence for hypertension service claims, with 39 ordered to pay money back after their claims were not verified.

This included a clawback of £722,850 from just one business in May this year, as well as recoveries of £102,705 and £83,490 from two businesses in January 2025.

Twenty-one businesses were ordered to pay back five-digit sums, with sums between £10-20,000 recovered from seven pharmacies and sums ranging from £20-30,000 recovered from 10.

Meanwhile 265 pharmacies have been asked to provide supporting evidence for Pharmacy First consultations since October 2025, with monies recovered from 139 of these.

The Pharmacy First payments recovered by the NHSBSA are much smaller than with the hypertension case-finding service, with the largest recovery amounting to £4,817 in December 2025.

Twenty-one other businesses were told to pay back sums in excess of £1,000, with the remaining 117 facing recoveries under £1,000.

An NHSBSA spokesperson said: "The post payment verification process provides assurance to NHS England that the services pharmacies deliver have been claimed in line with the regulations of the service specification or Drug Tariff. 

"The service specification sets out the length of time pharmacy contractors have to submit their claims and how long they should keep evidence for."

Related: Liverpool contractor faces £125k clawback for Covid delivery claims

NHS BSA recovers £45k in hypertension fees from a single pharmacy