NMS (New Medicine Service)

The New Medicine Service (NMS) was commissioned as an Advanced Service from October 2011.  Further information can be found via: New Medicine service – Community Pharmacy England (cpe.org.uk)

As part of the new CPCF 25/26 contractual settlement changes to NMS were announced from 1^st April, including in relation to fees.  Learn more.

Long planned changes to the NMS went live on 29th October 2025. The main changes to the NMS were:

• It expanded to include depression as an eligible therapeutic area. This is reflected in the updated service specification and NMS Eligible Drug List.
  There is no mandatory training related to the addition of depression to NMS, but a related training programme on consulting with people with mental health problems is included in the Pharmacy Quality Scheme for 2025/26.
• Wording in the service specification regarding the timing of Intervention and Follow up consultations was amended, so the Intervention consultation is provided between 7-14 days after recruitment and the Follow up consultation is between 14-21 days after the Intervention consultation.
  The previous wording said consultations would ‘typically take place between those time periods’.
  There is, however, also an ability for the pharmacist to agree consultations outside those periods on an exceptional basis, e.g. if a patient is on holiday.
• The service specification has been amended to include the clarification on subcontracting of the service not being allowed, which was highlighted to all pharmacy owners at the time of the CPCF settlement announcement in March. See further information on this below.

Draft versions of the updated service documents had been available on the NHSBSA website since August to provide advance notice of the changes to the service for pharmacy owners and their teams. The final version of the service specification (version 2.0) is published on the NHS website.

From 29^th October 2025 the NHS New Medicine Service has been expanded to include depression as a further eligible condition for which patients can receive support.

This means that people aged 18 years and over who are newly prescribed the most common antidepressants will be able to seek additional advice and support from their local pharmacist about their medication, healthy lifestyle changes and help to understand their treatment options.    Read more.