The national commissioning of flu vaccinations from community pharmacies may result in tensions between community pharmacies and local GP practices, and PSNC will be working nationally to try to ease any problems, the organisation has said.

But pharmacies should not hold back in offering the service should they find there is local disagreement, PSNC has said. Guidance says: ‘Community pharmacies will be able to proactively offer flu vaccination to eligible patients alongside dispensing and other services such as MUR and NMS and whilst GP support for this would be helpful and should be encouraged, it is not necessary in order to successfully provide the service.’

Many pharmacies have the experience to offer the service in place. Almost 90% of Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) had a local pharmacy flu vaccination service commissioned during the 2014/15 season, with more than 5,000 pharmacy contractors signed up, says PSNC.

It has been announced that the service will bring in remuneration of £7.64 per administered dose of vaccine plus reimbursement of the vaccine costs, and drug costs will be reimbursed at the basic price of the drug calculated in accordance with the Drug Tariff. An additional fee of £1.50 will also be paid per vaccination, ‘in recognition of costs incurred relating to the provision of the service including training, revalidation and disposal of clinical waste’.

‘Funding for the service will be in addition to and outside of total agreed community pharmacy funding for 2015/16, instead coming from NHS vaccination budgets. The total delivered will be dependent on uptake of the service, but no cap has been set for this,’ PSNC confirmed this week.

A range of online resources for pharmacy teams and for promoting the service to patients are available from PSNC, although details of record keeping and data requirements for the advanced service are to be agreed with NHS Employers and NHS England. The National Pharmacy Association will also be developing a template/model Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

More information from the PSNC website.