NPA vice chair Olivier Picard yesterday (January 15) called for community pharmacies to be involved in the delivery of “all vaccines” during a lecture at the Royal Society on the potential for vaccines to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
“There is very little appetite currently to involve pharmacies” more widely in the rollout of vaccines due to “various barriers”, he said.
But if that were to change, it “would certainly help the population get vaccinated, reduce antibiotic resistance and more importantly, benefit the NHS,” he stressed.
Read more: NI extends free flu jabs to over-50s as other nations rule out move
“The role of pharmacy is huge,” Picard said, adding that “with the right support and with the right investment...I can unleash the potential of community pharmacy”.
“What we need is government, MPs [and] civil servants to commission services so that in 2030 [or] 2035 all vaccines are done in community pharmacies, which is what I’ve been saying for 20 years,” he told attendees.
Read more: 74% of community pharmacy want national procurement of flu vaccines
“The commissioning of services needs to change,” he urged, adding that “when community pharmacy gets involved, everybody ups their game” and “uptake increases”.
Pharmacies are “ideally located”, have longer opening hours than GP practices and often have vaccines available for patients without the need for an appointment, he said.
C+D approached the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) and NHS England (NHSE) for comment.
Government “values” pharmacy
Parliamentary private secretary to the health secretary Dr Zubir Ahmed responded, in part, to Picard’s calls for the greater involvement of community pharmacy in vaccine rollout.
“The department values the work of pharmacies and we see it...as integral to some of our challenges in terms of delivering care from hospital into the community,” he said.
Read more: ‘It shocked me’: LPC chief urges pharmacists to get flu jab
It comes as health secretary Wes Streeting yesterday encouraged people to “get themselves vaccinated” and book through their “local GP or pharmacy” when making a statement on winter pressures to the House of Commons.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland last week became the only country in the UK to extend its NHS flu vaccination programme to 50-64 year olds amid increasing pressure on hospitals.
