by Alexander Humphries*

At long last we have a nationally commissioned flu vaccination service that can be delivered through community pharmacy. No patchy local commissioning. No ‘pilot’.

A full-scale, no-holds-barred opportunity to really show what we can do. No doubt there will be pharmacists out there who aren’t going to engage with the new service and will spout all sorts of reasons not to get involved.

But you know what? Everyone who is going to make this service work, including me, has the same problems as them. We are all overstretched, trying our best under difficult circumstances – it is just that we have chosen to spend our energies in a positive way.

Pull your weight

The long-term success of the service will depend on pharmacy pulling its weight. If each of the 11,000 pharmacies in England managed 100 flu jabs (which isn’t impossible), we would be talking about 1.1 million vaccinations by the spring. I’m hoping we can do even better than this.

Let us be clear: GPs are not happy about us being involved in this service, which has for so many years been a cash-cow for practices. All the more reason for us to be positive and really grab hold of this opportunity. Running a vaccination service was never something I wanted to do, to be honest, but the public changed my mind.

People kept asking if they could have a flu jab at the pharmacy, and when I had a chat with them the reasons they gave really surprised me. “I don’t get sick pay and can’t afford to be ill.” “The surgery clinics aren’t convenient for me.” “I’m a carer and I don’t want to get sick.” “The GP won’t give it to me.” I’ve always seen pharmacy as the patients’ champion, empowering them to look after themselves and to make their own minds up.

Nowhere is this more evident than with vaccination. As sadistic as it sounds, flu vaccination is now my favourite pharmacy service by a mile.

The paperwork is relatively straightforward, it takes around 10 minutes to consent the patient, prep and administer the vaccine. Of course the patient has to wait around afterwards, but you don’t have to babysit them in the consultation room, unless you want to.

Steady growth

Our service has grown steadily with many people coming back year after year. Last year one of the local practices kept a queue of over-60s outside in the rain for up to two hours while they performed vaccination ‘cattle class’. One patient gave up and came to the pharmacy to have her vaccine, even though she had to pay for it.

“This service is so much better,” she said. “I can get it when I want it and I’m treated like a person.” So happy was she that she wrote to the CCG (without any prompting from us) to ask why she couldn’t have her NHS vaccine in the pharmacy. The opportunity with the national vaccination service is huge.

Roughly 14 million patients were vaccinated in general practice last year, at around £10 per jab. In time I hope that pharmacy can service a bigger and bigger proportion of these patients. It would not be unreasonable in five years to expect half of all flu jabs to happen in a pharmacy.

The implications would be huge and it would provide funding equivalent to an extra 77 million prescription items. What are you waiting for?

Short notice

There are some genuine challenges with the new service, not least the short amount of notice given about the launch. If you were already planning to offer the service, you will probably be ok. If you weren’t, you might ordinarily have already missed the boat but pharmacy organisations have been brilliant as far as I can see. Extra training seems to have been laid on at short notice, so there is still plenty of time to get trained and ready.

Disappointingly the RPS seems to have been very quiet on the new vaccination service. As I write this, a quick check of the @rpharms twitter feed had yet to show any acknowledgement, let alone support for it. I understand the Society has been arguing back with GPs about the service, but I fear it is worried about upsetting its new-found friends by shouting too loudly about it...

Flu is now my favourite pharmacy service by a mile

 

* Pen name of a practising community pharmacist. Alexander Humphries’ views are not necessarily those of Pharmacy Magazine. What has your experience been of running a flu vaccination service? Email pm@1530.com