GPs to be enabled to use National Booking Service for this autumn’s flu campaign 

GP practices will be enabled to offer flu vaccination appointments via the National Booking Service for this autumn’s flu jab campaign, NHS England has announced. 

The news was announced in a letter from NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey to providers yesterday, who said enabling GPs to use the platform would ‘maximise uptake and improve accessibility’.

The letter also outlined NHS England’s vaccine uptake targets for the next three years, including a 46% uptake among children aged two to three this autumn.

In response, GP leaders told Pulse the national booking service should ‘complement’ GP practice’s own booking systems rather than replace them. 

The letter said NHS England would ‘ensure digital capabilities are in place to maximise uptake and improve accessibility including… enabling GP practices to offer flu vaccination appointments for their registered patients through the National Booking Service’. 

And ICBs will be expected to ‘encourage practices to offer appointments through the national booking service’, which NHS England said would help with ‘increasing accessibility and supporting national operational visibility’.

The platform will open ‘earlier than before’ this year – 17 August – and will remain open until 31 March 2027, it added.

Separately, for children aged two to three and other at-risk children, the letter called on commissioners to ‘ensure GP practices plan clinics as soon as delivery and supply of vaccine allows, running through the entire flu season, with the majority of vaccinations completed by 30 November’. 

Meanwhile, the GP enhanced service specification for the childhood seasonal flu programme, also published yesterday, confirmed the GP item of service fee would be £10.06 per vaccination administered. 

Sir Jim also said measures would need to be taken to address an ‘unacceptable variation’ in vaccination rates among frontline healthcare workers.  

The letter said the 30 ‘lowest performing’ areas achieved below 40% uptake levels amongst their frontline healthcare workers. NHS England national target for Autumn-Winter 2026 is 60-65%. 

Professor Azeem Majeed, a GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London, said the service should not replace existing routes for patients in the target cohort for vaccinations. 

Professor Majeed told Pulse: ‘The National Booking Service should complement, rather than replace, practices’ own recall systems. Many patients at higher risk from influenza – such as older people, those with frailty, learning disabilities, severe mental illness or limited digital access – are more likely to respond to personalised invitations from their own general practice. Practices also have valuable local knowledge that helps them identify, contact and encourage patients who might otherwise miss out on vaccination. 

He added: ‘Implementation will also need to be carefully managed. Practices will require adequate notice, sufficient vaccine supplies and appropriate administrative support. The National Booking Service must also integrate seamlessly with practice electronic health record systems to avoid duplicate bookings and unnecessary administrative work.  

‘These practical issues must be addressed if the changes are to improve access while maintaining the central role of general practice in delivering an effective, efficient and equitable flu vaccination programme.’ 

NHS England also recently announced all adults aged 65-74 with a chronic respiratory condition or suppressed immune system will be offered the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine this winter.