Flu Vaccination Service 2024-25
Update: Service specification for 2024/25 published
Following discussions with Community Pharmacy England, NHS England has published the service specification for the 2024/25 Community Pharmacy Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Advanced Service.
This early publication aims to support the planning and provision of the service by pharmacy owners.
For the 2024/25 season, the service fee will remain unchanged at £9.58, with the cost of the vaccine (and an allowance for VAT on the cost of the medicine) also being paid.
Read the NHS Flu Vaccination Service specification for 2024/25
Update: Annual flu letter for 2024/25 published
The Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England have jointly published the national flu vaccination programme letter for the 2024/25 season.
There are no changes to the eligible cohorts for the 2024/25 season and no changes recommended by JCVI for adult flu vaccines for 2024/2025. However, from 1st September 2024, pharmacies will only be able to vaccinate pregnant women. Then from October 2024, vaccination of the other adult cohorts will commence, with the exact starting date to be confirmed by NHS England in due course.
Read the annual flu letter for 2024/25
Determination for the Community Pharmacy Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Advanced Service (CPSIVAS)
- Community Pharmacy IIV PGD v12 (england.nhs.uk)
- Inactivated influenza vaccine: national protocol – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
We would like to highlight the 24/25 Flu Season letter (published on the 12th March) sets out JCVI advice on moving the start of the programme for most adults to October, with the exact start date to be confirmed.
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.
