The former pharmacy minister announced yesterday (January 12) that community pharmacies in England met the 33 million milestone on December 20 last year, in response to a written parliamentary question.

A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) confirmed to C+D yesterday that the figure reflected the number of vaccines administered by pharmacies since the start of the vaccination programme. 

As of December 20 2022, a total of 144,211,386 COVID-19 vaccines – including first and second doses and boosters – were administered in England across all settings, according to the government’s COVID-19 vaccination hub.

This means community pharmacies have delivered around 23% of all COVID jabs so far.

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Though the vaccines first became available in England on December 8 2020, pharmacy-led vaccination sites began delivering them on January 11 the following year.

Meanwhile, Boots, Superdrug and four independent pharmacies were the first six of “hundreds” of community pharmacies in England to start giving COVID-19 jabs directly on January 14 2021.

C+D reported in February last year that by October 2021, pharmacy-led vaccination sites and GP-led sited had together administered 71% of the total 87 million COVID-19 jabs under the national programme.

Pharmacies the “natural home” for all vaccinations

Company Chemist’s Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison said yesterday that the milestone was “further testament to the will and drive of the sector”, showing that “pharmacies continue to administer the Covid-19 vaccination at pace”.

“It is increasingly clear that pharmacies can be the natural home for all vaccinations,” he continued, echoing the shadow health secretary’s statement earlier this month (January 8) that pharmacies should be responsible for “a lot more vaccinations”.

Read more: Pharmacies should do 'a lot more' vaccinations, says shadow health sec

Making pharmacies the go-to place for all vaccines “would bring in much needed investment into the sector but also keep people away from ever-stretched GP surgeries”, Mr Harrison said.

He also called for allowing pharmacy technicians to vaccinate under patient group directions, saying this would “truly unlock the capacity of the sector” to deliver vaccinations.

It comes as a parliamentary undersecretary of state for the DH this week (January 10) said that a government plan to use pharmacies more “will put more funding their way”.

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Meanwhile, executive director of Day Lewis Jay Patel also called for all vaccinations to be administered in pharmacies when he championed the sector in an emergency NHS recovery meeting hosted by Rishi Sunak last week (January 7).