The national community pharmacy flu vaccination service 2016/17 is due to be launched on 1 September.

PSNC has released a series of key points that they believe community pharmacy needs to be aware of in the run up to the launch:

• The service is commissioned to run until 31 March 2017, which is one month longer than last year
• Notifying NHS England that a pharmacy wishes to provide the flu vaccination service must be done annually via the NHS BSA website
• A separate patient group direction (PGD) will be available for the community pharmacy flu vaccination service this year
• The GP notification form requires contractors to include the reason why the patient was eligible – this is a new requirement this year
• A new NHS England website will be available to support collation and submission of patient surveys
• Payment claims for vaccinations administered during March 2017 must be submitted to the NHS BSA by the 5 April. Late claims will not be processed
• NHS England has advised that consent forms should be retained for what the pharmacy contractor deems an appropriate period of time.

PSNC is to hold a flu vaccination webinar at 7:30pm on 24 August where pharmacy teams can find out how to make flu vaccinations a success.

In 2015/16, a total of 7,195 pharmacies carried out 595,467 flu vaccinations – an average of 83 per participating pharmacy.