A DH spokesperson confirmed to C+D today (November 29) that from tomorrow, the wearing of face mask in pharmacies in England will become mandatory again.
This was one of the measures announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to curb the spread of the new variant during a Downing Street press conference last week.
These measures are “temporary and precautionary” and will be reviewed in three weeks, Downing Street confirmed.
A total of three Omicron cases have been so far identified in England, while six have been recorded in Scotland.
Face masks have continued to be mandatory in most indoor public places – including pharmacies – in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as C+D reported last week (November 25). Meanwhile, this requirement was relaxed in England from July.
Expanding the booster programme
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has today advised the government to expand the COVID-19 booster programme to everyone over the age of 18 and shorten the waiting time for a booster jab from six months to three months after the patient's last COVID-19 vaccine. Children between the ages of 12 and 15 should be offered a second jab, the committee advised.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC yesterday, health secretary Sajid Javid said that he has “asked the NHS to prepare for much greater capacity in our vaccination programme”.
C+D has asked the government to clarify whether community pharmacy will play a bigger role in administering booster jabs, should this advice turn into policy.
Advice to travelling healthcare workers
Travellers returning to the UK will now also have to take a PCR test and self-isolate until they receive the results under the new precautionary measures.
Healthcare workers returning “from any travel overseas to countries not on the travel red list should not return to work until they have had an initial negative PCR”, NHS England and NHS Improvement and the UK Health Security Agency wrote in a statement addressed to healthcare staff yesterday.
They also urged health workers to continue following the national “Infection prevention and control for seasonal respiratory infections in health and care settings (including SARS-CoV-2)” advice for winter 2021/2022.
RPS: Pharmacy teams taking “all possible precautions”
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) urged community pharmacists last week to wear face coverings in healthcare settings to “protect each other and the NHS”.
Pharmacy teams “will be taking all possible precautions to reduce the risk of transmission” by wearing face masks, enforcing social distancing and “ensuring there’s proper ventilation”, the RPS’s practice and policy lead Heidi Wright told C+D today.
“Pharmacists and their teams at risk of coming into contact with COVID-positive patients should always be fully protected and provided with FFP3 masks when seeing patients”, she added.
The RPS has consistently called for "use of face masks in pharmacies and other healthcare settings”, Ms Wright said.
Mask-wearing was not compulsory in pharmacies at the start of the pandemic and guidance has shifted multiple times over the past 20 months.
Find out if and how pharmacies have been encouraging the use of face masks at their premises.
