Flu vaccinations through community pharmacies near 1.5 million

Community pharmacists across England have administrated a total of 1,490,992 flu vaccinations under the NHS Flu Vaccination Service in the last four months, according to the latest flu vaccination data.

The data, published by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC), shows that 1,263,192 vaccinations were reported through PharmOutcomes while 227,800 were reported through Sonar.

Over 62 per cent people who received vaccination through community pharmacies this season are aged 65 years and over, while 12.4 per cent have chronic respiratory diseases.

With around three months of flu season still left, the current number already surpassed last year’s total of 1,431,538 flu vaccinations.

Commenting on the success of this year’s service, Rosie Taylor, Head of Service Development at PSNC, told Pharmacy Business that the negotiators will use this success as a “case for an expanded role for pharmacies in other vaccination programmes under the national review of vaccination and immunisation.”

“Once again community pharmacy teams are going above and beyond to make sure that as many eligible adults as possible receive the NHS flu vaccination. We are proud of the sector’s hard work to help ease winter healthcare pressures, particularly during this period of change as the new contractual framework is introduced.”

“Many people are choosing the accessibility and convenience of their local pharmacy as the place to get their flu jab. It also can’t hurt that patient surveys in previous years has rated the pharmacy service highly, with 99 per cent of patients said they would recommend the service to family and friends,” she said.

A recent Public Health England (PHE) weekly report shows a decrease in flu-related hospital and intensive care admissions, from 6.23 per 100,000 to 4.42 per 100,000 and 0.40 per 100,000 to 0.37 per 100,000 respectively.

However, GP consultations with flu-like illness increased from 12.9 per 100,000 in the last week of 2019 to 16.6 per 100,000 in the week I of 2020.