Community pharmacies in England were paid £91m for providing Covid-19 vaccinations between January and June, newly published data indicates.

An analysis of coronavirus-related payments to pharmacies in the first six months of this year carried out by PharmData shows that Covid-19 payments topped £101m, with vaccinations accounting for 90 per cent of the total, or £91.3m.

Pharmacy2U tops the leaderboard with 558,691 vaccinations worth £7.03m, followed by the Boots Group PLC with a total of 427,339 jabs amounting to £5.37m, though no individual Boots store features in the top 10.

Independent chain Imaan Healthcare and Superdrug also feature in the top five, as does Sharief Healthcare.

Meanwhile, a total of £10.08m has been paid out to pharmacies for providing the lateral flow test kit service Pharmacy Collect. Cornwells Chemists in Stafford recorded the most transactions at 4,653, followed by Good Health Pharmacies in Tottenham at 3,570 and Halls the Chemist in Peterborough. Boots stores accounted for 12,835 transactions in total.

Up to now pharmacies have been paid £1.50 plus VAT for providing up to four boxes of test kits in each transaction, but this will change on Monday October 4 when NHS BSA will start paying contractors £1.70 for each member of the public that provides a code when requesting a kit and £1.20 for ‘anonymous’ transactions.