Key Summary
- Pharmacies earn £10.06 per administered dose, plus £300 for starting the service and £400 if they reach a 100-dose threshold by March 2027.
- Over half of pharmacies surveyed by the NPA report heavy bookings, with the NHS National Booking Service opening ahead of the 20 July rollout.
- Experiences range from smooth stock-matching in Berkshire and Healthy-U branches, to vaccine shortages and initial cancelled appointments at Lincoln Pharmacy.
Community pharmacy owners across England have stepped up to deliver the NHS Meningococcal B (MenB) student vaccination service – the first national NHS immunisation campaign provided exclusively through community pharmacies.
Despite strong public demand, sector readiness has been mixed. Data gathered by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) found that 56% of pharmacies reported heavy bookings, while a recent Pharmacy Business poll revealed that only 26% of teams felt "fully prepared and ready" at launch. A further 30% noted they were ready but struggling with heavy workloads, and 30% remained uncertain about their operational setup.
The NHS supply was initially patchy, but it has now stabilised to some extent.
Reality on the ground
According to recent data by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), 83% of members reported that they had sufficient stock to start vaccinating patients by Friday. This is up 20% from Monday, when only 63% of pharmacies said they had sufficient stock, indicating that the stock situation has steadily improved.
Olivier Picard, Chair of the National Pharmacy Association said: “MenB is very serious but people can be protected against more severe illness through vaccination and pharmacies are proud to be leading a campaign to help protect students embarking on university life, the first of its kind.
“We are aware that in a minority of instances, some pharmacies last week were left with insufficient supply to meet initial appointments. We've escalated these issues urgently with officials at NHS England and most of our members have told us these initial problems with supply are starting to ease.
“Although this is an important step forwards, there are clearly some lessons to be learned about the logistical arrangements for vaccine campaigns like this. We hope these are temporary teething issues and we would urge patients to continue to come forward for vaccination before the start of the university term.”
Community Pharmacy England (CPE) said it has been working with NHS England to monitor its early progress and address teething issues.
NHS England has taken action to support pharmacies in response to the concerns we raised around the initial ordering and allocation process, and is reviewing these processes daily, it added.
Alastair Buxton, Director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England, said: “Community pharmacy owners and their teams have worked hard to get this new vaccination service up and running in an incredibly short space of time, and it has been great to see the enthusiasm of pharmacy teams for it. The service is important for patients and to the NHS and Government, and the decision to commission it only from community pharmacies gives it considerable strategic importance for the sector.
"However, there have been frustrating teething issues particularly around vaccine ordering and supply, which have added to the burden on already busy pharmacy teams. NHS England is working to iron these out based on the feedback we’ve shared from the sector. Vaccine supply is being bolstered to support walk-in appointment provision and demand that arises after the next week’s order has been placed.
"NHS England has updated their guidance on supply and delivery of the vaccine to reflect this and we advise pharmacy owners to download the latest version of the guidance from the Futures platform.”
At Day Lewis Pharmacy in Reading, Pharmacist Manager Yasser Abboud reported a positive start.
“Overall, the rollout has been positive, and we have seen encouraging patient interest since the service launched. We are anticipating this to increase in a couple of weeks when results day hits and students find out whether or not they are going to university," he said.
“The main operational challenge is balancing appointment availability with stock management. While the requirement to publish 100 appointments each month is understandable from an access perspective, pharmacies still need to manage bookings carefully to ensure vaccine availability remains aligned with patient demand.”
Regarding supply of the vaccine, he said that the current vaccine allocation has been sufficient to meet demand, and they have not experienced any significant stock limitations.
Abboud said that patient demand had been strong.
“The service has been well received by patients, highlighting the important role community pharmacies can play in improving access to vaccination,” he added.
However, he said that as awareness grows, the demand will increase. And pharmacies will need flexibility and support in delivering the vaccinations.
Similarly, Dervis Gurol, Director at Healthy-U Pharmacies Group, and IPCN Director, emphasised the importance of cautious scheduling across their two sites.
“From the start, we worked closely around the service specification and the available guidance. We only opened 10 appointments for the first week at each site, so we could make sure we had enough stock for every patient who booked through the National Booking Service. We have also been using RAVS to record vaccinations for some time now, so the actual vaccine entry and recording process has been smooth,” he said.
When one site experienced significantly higher demand, Gurol requested an exception for additional stock, which was approved and delivered to prevent overbooking or avoidable cancellations.
“In terms of supply, for a service that was rolled out quickly, there were naturally some teething issues. We managed this by reading the guidance carefully, understanding how the supply process would work, and planning our appointments around our delivery schedule. For example, we opened our second-week appointments the day after our vaccine delivery date, so we could be confident stock was physically available before increasing appointment numbers.”
“A week in, I think most contractors have now settled into the routine of managing appointments, stock and eligibility checks. Community pharmacy can deliver even more vaccination services, and we are in a prime position to support rapid rollout programmes and help ensure eligible cohorts are vaccinated as quickly and safely as possible.”
Teething issues
On the other hand, when we visited Atul Patel and Sachin Patel at Lincoln Pharmacy last week, during the early days of the vaccine rollout, he said it had “caused chaos”.
Sachin Patel commented: “They only promised 10 doses per pharmacy and again, not learning the lessons from Covid.”
The supply limit forced the pharmacy to block out bookings and turn away walk-in patients-such as students starting university – who were advised by NHS websites that no appointment was necessary.
Adding to the challenge, the service contract requires pharmacies to administer a minimum of 100 Meningitis B vaccines.
“How are we going to do it if you have barriers in order to get your payment?" asked Atul Patel. Sachin added that failing to hit the quota puts pharmacies at risk of being removed from the service entirely, despite having to cancel appointments due to NHS stock caps.
“To cancel appointments is shocking. To turn people away is shocking, and then to tell us we have to do a minimum 100... It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever,” he said.
Under the service terms negotiated by Community Pharmacy England (CPE), pharmacy owners receive £10.06 per administered dose, alongside an initial £300 setup fee after their first dose and a £400 bonus if they complete 100 or more vaccinations by March 2027, with university terms beginning from the end of September.
