Community pharmacies in England should be commissioned to deliver all adult vaccinations through National Enhanced Services, the think tank Policy Exchange has recommended.
In a report published last week, it envisioned a larger role for community pharmacy in the delivery of vaccinations in England, including commissioning the sector to deliver more vaccinations and allowing access to patient records to support ‘opportunistic vaccination’ in the community.
Policy Exchange also suggested bolstering workforce capacity by allowing pharmacy technicians to deliver vaccinations through a Patient Group Direction, and giving pharmacy, nursing and medical students the option of delivering seasonal vaccinations where appropriate.
It said that 12,000 pharmacy students, 90,000 nursing students and 35-40,000 medical students currently in universities in England should be ‘asked to volunteer to administer’ Covid and flu jabs by being deployed to GP surgeries and community pharmacy during seasonal rollout campaigns.
Likewise, more routes should be created for experienced pharmacists, nurses and GPs to re-enter does the workforce and undertake vaccination work.
The report also urged NHS England to announce vaccine collaboratives pilots in integrated care systems to join up pharmacy, general practice, PCNs and other providers.
In these collaboratives, the £10.06 item of service fee would be replaced by a population-based contract to the collaborative, with the objective to ‘pool resources most efficiently, free up clinical time for other activity and improve uptake amongst underserved populations’.
To support this, Policy Exchange recommended that all providers commissioned to deliver vaccinations should have access to the relevant section of a patient’s health records to enable users to view their immunisation records and enable joint controllership of data with GPs.
It explained: ‘In primary care, we need to move to a point where data is reliable and freely shared across pharmacy and general practice. This would be a transformation from the status quo. GPs have been wary of sharing patient data, often due to legitimate concerns.’
Thorrun Govind, RPS English Pharmacy Board chair, said she hopes that ‘many’ of the ‘practical proposals’ in the report will be ‘taken forward’.
She added: ‘Driving vaccine uptake across the life course will require concerted effort across Government and the NHS. It is heartening therefore to see proposals which look to encourage the conditions for community pharmacy to do more.’
Pulse revealed in July that a new national vaccination service could launch as early as next year, with a procurement notice inviting prospective suppliers to express their interest in deploying vaccines and helping to design ‘an integrated strategy for all NHS immunisation programmes’.
A version of this article was first published by Pulse’s sister title The Pharmacist
Everyone else gets funded. You’ll be bled dry. Doing free home visits and cleaning the drivel no one else wants. Named accountable hey? The same pharmacists that can do Botox, fillers and sell you a dodgy eczema designer cream while you’re there. Not knocking allieds just stating the facts.
I’ve always thought gp practice was very efficient at delivering vaccinations.
Particularly the childhood immunisations. I still remember various practices combining the newborn health check, a postnatal mum’s check and the primary immunisations all in a one-step appointment. Worked really well for all.
‘NHS vaccination service’ sounds like perfect model for cherry-picking a service that the private sector can cream money off any contract.
No doubt there will be an unworkable central record of all vaccinations with multiple providers and no proper joined up thinking, leading to endless requests for patients to ‘just check with your gp’ if you need any further vaccinations.
There are plenty of problems with the NHS that need fixing. Why target vaccination programmes and try to fix what isn’t broke!
Think tanks. Don’t you just love ’em? Vacuous streams of conciousness spouted by those who haven’t a clue and have never delivered anything in their lives.