In collaboration with our colleagues across NHS Procurement in Partnership (NHS PiP) NOE CPC has created this framework to provide NHS trusts, mental health trusts, community trusts and ICSs an effective and efficient route to market to support you in the provision of pharmaceutical services. 

Pharmaceutical Services involves services that are ordinarily and customarily rendered by a pharmacy or pharmacist, including the preparation and dispensing of pharmaceutical products. These services are essential to ensure the health and wellbeing of the population can be maintained and improved. 

This framework can be used by NHS organisations to commission these services from providers that have undergone a rigorous tendering process. This process has been established and built on previous similar successful frameworks with input and oversight from a number of pharmaceutical, medicine, and procurement experts from each NHS PiP procurement hub to ensure the specification is robust and can meet the needs of NHS organisations. 

The agreement aims to:

• Provide an inpatient, outpatient and discharge dispensing service which is safe, effective, and conducted by certified suppliers on a trust site(s) or via a remote hub
• Provide a multi-compartment compliance aid (MCA) assembly and delivery service, for inpatients, outpatients or home delivery patients, to help and guide patients in ensuring they take their medication on the correct day and time
• Effectively provide the delivery of stock pharmaceutical products to the contracting authority in pre-assembled containers for defined ward locations, ready for onward delivery within the hospital
• Provide fully trained and competent staff to perform their duties in accordance with the requirements of the service
• Appropriate reporting of services needed to assist in the reporting to commissioners if appropriate.