Flu Vaccination Service 2023-24
Free resources for Community Pharmacy Teams
Community Pharmacy England has published new promotional materials for the Flu Vaccination Service on their website. A variety of resources are available for LPCs and pharmacy owners to use including letters, posters, flyers and social media template tweets and tiles.
https://cpe.org.uk/our-news/new-promotional-materials-for-the-flu-vaccination-service/
Determination for the Community Pharmacy Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Advanced Service (CPSIVAS)
- NHS England » Community pharmacy seasonal influenza vaccine service
- Community Pharmacy IIV PGD v12 (england.nhs.uk)
- Inactivated influenza vaccine: national protocol – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The government has confirmed an amendment to the 2023 to 2024 annual flu letter. It outlines the addition of secondary school children in Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 to the programme. This includes those that are home-schooled and other children not in mainstream education. Providers should ensure they commence vaccinations as early as possible after the flu vaccine becomes available and complete by 15 December in line with the other school aged cohorts already announced.
Data collection requirements
The pharmacy contractor must maintain appropriate electronic records to ensure effective ongoing service delivery, in line with the terms of this section. Records must be managed in line with ‘Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care’. Pharmacy contractors must use an NHS assured point of care system to record the administration of vaccinations. The pharmacy contractor must ensure that any staff recording the administration of the vaccination have received relevant training to be able to update records appropriately and accurately. There must be robust user and access management processes to ensure high levels of security, including frequent updates to system access levels to add users who join the pharmacy team or remove accounts where staff leave employment or do not have shifts scheduled at the pharmacy. One point of care system must be used to record vaccinations in any calendar month except where it is necessary to make amendments to previously recorded vaccination events or where this has been agreed with the commissioner during the transition to a new point of care system.
Pharmacy contractors must adhere to defined standards of record keeping ensuring that the vaccination event is recorded on the same day that it is administered unless exceptional circumstances apply. Where the point of Community pharmacy advanced service specification care system is unavailable due to exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the pharmacy contractor, then the record of vaccination events must be added to the point of care system as soon as possible after the point of care system becomes available again. Where a record of the vaccination needs amending or has not been created on the point of care system, the pharmacy contractor shall be responsible for undertaking the amendment or creation as soon as reasonably possible following notification that the record is not complete or correct. Data recorded via the point of care system regarding the patient’s vaccination
will be shared with the patient’s general practice (where this is known) automatically. Where a problem occurs with this notification system, the pharmacy contractor must ensure a copy of the vaccination notification is sent or emailed (via secure email) to the general practice.
Some of the data recorded in point of care systems will be shared with the NHS Business Services Authority’s (NHSBSA) Manage Your Service (MYS) platform as part of normal payment arrangements . An application programming interface (API) is in place to facilitate transfer of this data into the MYS platform to improve payment claim accuracy. Details of the API and the data transferred from point of care systems to MYS. The pharmacy contractor must comply with any reasonable request for information from the commissioner relating to the provision of services under this advanced service. Data recorded in point of care systems that has been pseudonymised may be shared with NHS England for service monitoring, evaluation and research purposes.
Further details on the 2023-24 flu vaccination programme announced
An expression of interest has been sent out to all contractors to be able to offer dual vaccinations for both Influenza and Covid-19
Expression of interest link can be found here:
A link to Community Pharmacy England Website where more information can be found
The following JCVI-recommended vaccines will be reimbursed as part of the NHS Annual Influenza Vaccination Programme for adults in 2023/24:
Those aged 65 years and over:
- aQIV – This is offered off label for those who turn 65 before 31st March 2024
- QIVr
- QIVc (where aQIV is not available)
At-risk adults, including pregnant women, aged 18 to less than 65 years:
- QIVc
- QIVr
- QIVe (where QIVc is not available)
Funding
Funding for the service comes from the NHS vaccination budget and is in addition to and outside of global sum funding. For the 2023/24 season, the service fee remains at £9.58 plus the cost of the vaccine (and an allowance for VAT on the cost of the medicine).
