ARRS funding, the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, is the line every PCN uses to pay for extra clinical roles, but the mechanics behind it, how big the national pot actually is, how a network’s own allocation gets worked out, and what NHS England will and will not reimburse, rarely sit in one place. This page covers exactly that: the confirmed 2026/27 figures, the formula behind a PCN’s allocation, and what happens when some of it goes unspent.
It is written for PCN clinical directors, practice managers and finance leads who need the funding numbers stated plainly. If you want a role-by-role breakdown of what ARRS-funded pharmacists and technicians actually do, that lives in a separate guide, linked further down this page. If you are ready to look at how a commissioned remote clinical pharmacy service works, that is covered further down too. This page itself stays with the money: what comes in, how it is worked out, and how it goes back out again.
What ARRS funding is
The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) is part of the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES), the national agreement between NHS England and Primary Care Networks. It is the mechanism NHS England uses to reimburse PCNs for the salary costs of a defined list of additional roles, including clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, on top of a practice’s existing GP and nursing establishment.
ARRS money reaches a PCN as reimbursement tied to specific roles and specific maximum amounts, all set out in the Network Contract DES guidance NHS England publishes each year alongside the wider GP contract, not as a single grant to spend freely. Every figure in this guide is cited to that guidance, or to NHS England’s own GP contract publications, so you can check it against the source documents your PCN’s finance team will already be working from.
How much money is in the ARRS pot
ARRS sits inside a much larger settlement. NHS England’s 2026/27 GP contract is worth £13,863 million in total, a 3.6% cash increase and a 1.4% real-terms increase against the GDP deflator, and that total includes a £485 million uplift on the year before. NHS England publishes those figures in its summary of the 2026/27 GP contract changes. That figure covers the whole GP contract, not ARRS specifically, and the two are worth keeping apart: ARRS is one funding stream inside the Network Contract DES, which is itself one part of that wider contract.
The most recent confirmed, itemised ARRS total is for 2025/26: £1,710,877,000, close to £1.71 billion. NHS England’s Network Contract DES Part B Guidance sets out how that figure is built. It is not a fixed pot split evenly across PCNs. It is calculated per PCN, using a national rate of £26.848 per point of PCN Contractor Weighted Population, applied against a national population figure of 63,723,400 as at January 2025. Multiplied by that population figure, the per-point rate is broadly how NHS England arrives at the £1.71 billion national total, distributed across every PCN in England according to its own weighted population.
At the time of writing, NHS England has not published a confirmed, itemised total for the 2026/27 ARRS pot. Where this guide states a national total, it is the 2025/26 figure, dated accordingly, not an estimate for the year ahead.
How your PCN’s ARRS allocation is calculated
The same weighted-population formula that sets the national total also sets what an individual PCN receives. Your PCN’s population is not a simple headcount. It is adjusted using the Carr-Hill formula, the same weighting NHS England applies to the core GP contract global sum, before the per-point rate is applied.
NHS England publishes a ready reckoner alongside the DES guidance so PCNs can see roughly what a given weighted population translates to in ARRS funding. Using the 2025/26 rate of £26.848 per point, a PCN with a weighted population of 30,000 sits at approximately £805,440 a year, and a PCN with a weighted population of 50,000 sits at approximately £1,342,400 a year. Your own PCN’s exact figure is set out in the allocation your commissioner issues each year, and it is worth checking that figure against your weighted population directly instead of assuming it tracks your raw registered list, since the two numbers are rarely identical.
This total is a ceiling on what your PCN can claim, worked out before a single role is filled. What you actually receive back depends on which roles you recruit or commission against it, up to each role’s own maximum reimbursable amount, covered next.
What ARRS actually pays
ARRS reimbursement is capped role by role against your PCN’s total allocation. NHS England reimburses 100% of a role’s actual salary plus employer on-costs (National Insurance and pension contributions), up to a maximum amount set for that role, with one standard exception: mental health practitioners are reimbursed at 50%, because that role is jointly funded with mental health trusts. Nothing above the role’s maximum is reimbursed, and reimbursement covers salary and on-costs only, not additional hours, overtime, or recruitment and retention premia.
The confirmed GP reimbursement rate for 2026/27
The clearest confirmed figures for 2026/27 apply to the ARRS-funded GP role. NHS England’s Network Contract DES guidance sets the maximum reimbursable salary element at £118,759 for 2026/27, up from £82,418 in 2025/26, and £120,921 for a GP working in London. Including employer on-costs, National Insurance and pension, the combined maximum reimbursable amount for 2026/27 stands at £152,900 outside London and £155,698 including London weighting.
Two eligibility changes come with the new rate. The restriction limiting ARRS-funded GP roles to those within two years of gaining their Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) is removed for 2026/27: any GP who has not been substantively employed as a GP in a Core Network Practice of the PCN in the previous 12 months is now eligible. From 1 May 2026, PCNs also gain transitional flexibility to move GPs and Band 5 or 6 practice nurses funded through the 2025/26 PCN Capacity and Access Payment or the PCN Test Sites Programme into ARRS, subject to funding availability, without the usual 12-month condition.
This ARRS GP rate is a separate, non-ARRS mechanism to a new practice-level GP reimbursement scheme also introduced for 2026/27, funded by repurposing £292 million from the former PCN-level Capacity and Access Payment. Both involve GP funding for 2026/27, which is exactly why they get muddled. Keep them apart when you are budgeting: the rate above is claimed through the ARRS route described on this page, and the practice-level scheme is not.
Pharmacist, technician and other role rates
For roles other than GPs, PCNs and their employers have more flexibility. NHS England’s guidance offers Agenda for Change bands as a guideline for ARRS roles such as clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, not a mandatory rate. A directly-employing PCN agrees actual salary and terms with the employee; a PCN commissioning a service instead agrees a service fee with its provider. Each role still carries its own maximum reimbursable amount, published in Annex B of the Network Contract DES guidance and updated for each contract year.
This page states the reimbursement mechanism instead of a specific pharmacist or technician figure, because figures reported for these roles elsewhere online do not consistently trace back to a primary NHS England document for 2026/27, and getting a funding figure wrong is worse than leaving a gap. Check Annex B of the current Network Contract DES guidance directly for the maximum reimbursable amount that applies to the role you are recruiting or commissioning against. For what each of these roles actually does day to day within a PCN, our guide to ARRS pharmacist roles sets that out role by role.
How PCNs claim ARRS reimbursement
PCNs submit claims in arrears through NHS England’s online claims portal, and reimbursement does not arrive automatically or upfront. Each claim covers the actual salary and on-costs paid for that role over the claim period, up to the role’s maximum reimbursable amount.
Because claims run in arrears, a gap between a role starting and the first payment landing is normal and worth building into cash flow planning, whether the role is recruited directly or delivered through a commissioned service.
Using ARRS funding for an outsourced or remote pharmacy service
A PCN can meet an ARRS role either by employing directly or by commissioning a third-party organisation to deliver it. NHS England’s Network Contract DES guidance addresses this specifically for sub-contracted remote clinical pharmacy services, under the ARRS clinical pharmacist role.
A PCN commissioning a remote clinical pharmacy service is not supplying itself with staff. It is buying delivery, evidenced through a service agreement rather than a contract of employment. Our ARRS support page sets out how we structure a commissioned service for a network.
What PCNs most often fund this way
Where a network commissions a remote clinical pharmacy service, it is buying an agreed workstream delivered to an agreed schedule. In our experience the workstreams networks hand over first are the ones that are steady, protocol-driven and easy to evidence in the record:
- Structured medication reviews, including the complex, care home and housebound patients that take longest.
- High risk drug monitoring, with the recall and chasing carried through to completion, not reported as outstanding.
- Discharge and clinic letter reconciliation, actioned into the record the week it arrives.
- Repeat prescribing and acute request triage, worked to the network’s own protocols.
- Long term condition clinics across hypertension, diabetes, asthma and COPD.
- CQC and quality searches, run through the year so the evidence is current.
A network can take one of these or several together. Our PCN management support page covers how the work is scoped at network level, and our clinical pharmacist support page sets out how delivery works inside your own clinical system.
What happens to ARRS underspend
Underspend does happen, most often when a role sits vacant partway through a year. NHS England’s guidance is specific about what happens next. ICBs are formally advised not to transfer ARRS underspend between PCNs, a rule designed to stop one PCN’s shortfall becoming another PCN’s overspend risk at ICB level.
Vacancies are handled directly rather than left open-ended. If a role forming part of a PCN’s fixed 31 March 2019 baseline becomes vacant, the PCN gets a three-month grace period to refill it before the associated claim adjusts. It is one of the practical reasons a commissioned service, where cover during any gap in delivery sits with the provider, not the PCN, keeps a claim on the strongest possible footing: continuity of delivery is what keeps it intact.
Frequently asked questions
What is ARRS funding?
ARRS funding is the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, part of the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service between NHS England and Primary Care Networks. It reimburses PCNs for the salary costs, plus employer National Insurance and pension contributions, of a defined list of additional clinical and non-clinical roles, including clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. It sits alongside, not instead of, a practice’s existing GP and nursing establishment.
How much does ARRS pay towards a role’s salary?
ARRS reimburses 100% of a role’s actual salary plus employer on-costs (National Insurance and pension contributions), up to a maximum amount set for that specific role. The one exception is mental health practitioners, reimbursed at 50% because that role is jointly funded with mental health trusts. Reimbursement does not extend to additional hours or to recruitment and retention premia. NHS England’s DES Part B Guidance, sections 7.6.2 to 7.6.7, sets out the full mechanism.
How is a PCN’s total ARRS allocation calculated?
A PCN’s ARRS allocation is calculated from its weighted population, using the Carr-Hill formula, multiplied by a national rate per point set out in NHS England’s Network Contract DES Part B Guidance, section 7.3.2 and Table 1. The worked examples earlier in this guide show what that looks like at two different weighted population sizes using the confirmed 2025/26 rate. Your commissioner issues your PCN’s exact figure each year.
Can ARRS funding be used for an outsourced or remote pharmacy service?
Yes. NHS England’s Network Contract DES guidance, sections 8.2.4 and 8.3.8 to 8.3.12, allows a PCN to meet an ARRS role by commissioning a third-party organisation instead of employing directly, with a dedicated provision covering sub-contracted remote clinical pharmacy services.
What happens to ARRS funding a PCN does not spend?
NHS England’s guidance formally advises ICBs against transferring ARRS underspend between PCNs, to avoid creating an overspend risk elsewhere in the ICB. Beyond that specific rule, NHS England has not published a forfeiture policy or a utilisation percentage for ARRS underspend, so this guide does not state one.
Has ARRS funding increased for 2026/27?
Yes, in the parts NHS England has confirmed. The GP contract carries a £485 million uplift for 2026/27, and the ARRS-funded GP role’s own maximum reimbursable salary rises from £82,418 to £118,759. NHS England has not yet published a confirmed, itemised total for the 2026/27 national ARRS pot at the time of writing, so the most recent confirmed total remains the 2025/26 figure of £1.71 billion.
What is the practical difference between employing an ARRS pharmacist and commissioning a service?
An employed role is a person your network recruits, supervises and covers. A commissioned service is an agreed volume of work delivered to a schedule, where supervision, continuing professional development, indemnity and cover for absence sit with the provider. The clinical responsibility for your patients and your prescribing decisions stays with your clinicians either way.
What happens to the work when a pharmacist is on leave?
Under a commissioned service that is the provider’s responsibility, not the network’s, so the agreed workstream carries on to the same schedule. It is the practical difference most clinical directors ask about first, because it is the part that a single appointment cannot solve.
Related VP resources
This guide covers the funding mechanics: the size of the ARRS pot, how your PCN’s allocation is worked out, and what NHS England will reimburse. Two related pages take the subject further.
- For what ARRS-funded pharmacists and technicians actually do inside a PCN, see our guide to ARRS pharmacist roles.
- For how a commissioned remote clinical pharmacy service works, see our ARRS support page.
- For what the work looks like once it is running, see our clinical pharmacy case studies.
If your PCN is weighing up whether a commissioned service makes sense against its own ARRS allocation, get in touch and we will work through the numbers with you.
Clinical pharmacist support by area
The service is delivered remotely by our UK team inside your own clinical system, and it is available to practices and PCNs across England. These pages set out the commissioner and the local picture area by area:
- Birmingham and Solihull
- Berkshire and Oxfordshire
- The Black Country
- Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire
- Coventry and Warwickshire
- Greater Manchester
- Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
- Kent and Medway
- Lancashire and South Cumbria
- Leicestershire and Rutland
- Lincolnshire
- Merseyside and Cheshire
- Norfolk and Suffolk
- The North East and North Cumbria
- Northamptonshire
- Nottinghamshire
- South West London
- South Yorkshire
- Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent
- Sussex
- West Yorkshire
