London Winter Vaccination Service

London community pharmacies have been commissioned this year to not only provide influenza vaccines but also pertussis and shingles vaccines.

Pharmacies were notified that there have been 3 infant deaths in the last 2 months in London from whooping cough.  Such deaths are preventable, if the mothers get vaccinated in pregnancy. Pharmacists are urged to remind patients of the importance of getting vaccinated against pertussis between weeks 28 and 38 of their pregnancy (ideally between weeks 28 and 32).

From next year, as a result of the success of the pan-London flu vaccination service, it has been confirmed that this service is will be recommissioned this year. Participating pharmacies will be able to offer the pertussis vaccine to pregnant women together with flu vaccination. Shingles and pneumococcal pneumonia vaccinations are also included along with children’s intranasal flu vaccination for certain groups.

Pharmacy London has set up a small team once again this year to work on developing this service with the commissioners at NHSE -London. This service will be called the London Community Pharmacy 2014 WINTER VACCINATION Service.

This team will be there to support pharmacy LPC's throughout the setting up and implementation of the service in the same way as last year.

The service SLA will starts from 1st September 2014 and hence so long as  pharmacists are accredited already and signed up to the SLA, they will be able to start vaccinating for flu as soon as vaccine for the season is available

London Wide Influenza PGD Commissioning

The Pharmacy London Flu Team has just released a statement saying that they are in the process of finalizing a contract with the NHS which will see ALL pharmacies in London commissioned for influenza vaccine provision. This means that if a pharmacist is appropriately trained using an accredited influenza training provider such as PharmaDoctor they will be paid to offer the service to at risk groups. These groups include:

• Anyone over the age of 65 
• Pregnant women 
• People with an underlying health conditions (particularly long-term heart or respiratory disease) 
• People with weakened immune systems

The reimbursement for providing the service as of yet has not been finalised however, there is talk that this will be equivalent to GP reimbursement. We strongly recommend that you come to one of our PharmaDoctor training days, we have the shortest training time and in addition to the influenza PGD pharmacists also can administer Hepatitis B and Meningitis.