COVID-19 vaccination fees stagnate despite negotiator pleas
Confirmation of the unchanging fees comes as NHS England (NHSE) has asked pharmacies to prepare for the autumn flu and COVID-19 vaccination programmes to start in October, or September for pregnant women.
NHSE has confirmed that the fee paid to pharmacies for COVID-19 vaccinations will remain at £7.54, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said yesterday (May 30).
The negotiator added that the decision to stagnate fees is “despite further counter-arguments that CPE has put forward”.
Meanwhile, NHSE yesterday released a letter telling community pharmacies to “work on the basis that the COVID-19 and adult flu programmes will commence in early October”.
“We will agree a precise start date for the COVID-19 and flu campaigns in due course,” it added.
It told C+D today that the while the adult flu programme will begin in October, pregnant women will still be offered the vaccine from September, as announced by the government in March.
It added that the child flu programme will also begin in September.
Vaccination chaos
NHSE said that the decision to commence flu and COVID-19 vaccines in October “maximises the opportunity for co-administration” and recognises “that the flu vaccine’s effectiveness can wane over time”.
It also announced a new process for pharmacies to express their interest in offering COVID-19 jabs, launching a new expression of interest (EOI) form for contracts lasting from September 1 2024 to March 31 2026.
The new approach “removes the additional administrative burden of repeated EOIs before each campaign starts,” CPE said.
Last year, sector leaders slammed the “shambolic start” to the autumn vaccination programme after sudden changes to the start dates of the NHS flu and COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.
In August, NHSE said that the 2023 launch was “likely to be in October”, not on September 1 as in previous years.
At the time, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) warned that “pre-ordered stock will go to waste” and threatened NHSE with legal action over financial losses caused by the delay.
But NHSE later confirmed that NHS flu jab appointments already booked for September could still go ahead, despite a delayed start to the service that was only communicated to pharmacies days before.
And later that month, the government announced that the program would be brought forward to September 11.
