Opinion: Is new vaccine service just an added burden?

In Opinion

Follow this topic

Bookmark

Record learning outcomes

It was recently announced that a new vaccination service would be delivered by community pharmacies. The service will provide meningitis B jabs to young people heading to university or residential further education in September. 

It is a response to a number of clusters of meningitis cases in different areas in 2026, centred around student communities, that sadly led to the tragic deaths of two young people.

Two doses of the vaccine will be provided 28 days apart to a target population of around 1 million young people. Vaccines will be centrally procured, and, at the time of writing, negotiations were close to conclusion with the service due to start in late July.

This service fits neatly into the community pharmacy portfolio as pharmacists are now very experienced in providing vaccinations – and it will also provide welcome additional income.

However, this does raise questions for me. The first is, if pharmacies are working at capacity, as we keep hearing, how will they manage to provide this scheme? The Government obviously thinks this is a valuable service, both to reduce the risk of meningitis and provide piece of mind for students and parents. 

So what will pharmacies need to stop doing to create the time to provide this new service? Will offering this service cannibalise the time pharmacists and pharmacy technicians have available to deliver other services? Will the continuity of services be negatively impacted?

Knee jerk response

The service seems to be seasonal, at least for this year. There is no mention yet of it continuing past 2026 – so one does wonder if it is simply just a political knee jerk response to heightened public concern, rather than an evidence-based intervention. 

This will be difficult to plan for in terms of workload in pharmacies, especially given the short notice this year and implied urgency coinciding with the holiday season.

My concern is that this doesn’t seem like it is part of a plan. There seems to be no strategic aim that this service fits into. It feels like opportunism, like pharmacies are the market traders of the healthcare economy, grasping at whatever they can get hold of to make a return.

Another question that occurred to me is why GPs are not involved in providing this service. They would have had the benefit of being able to identify and target patients from their practice lists, and epidemiological data could be collected to identify progress towards the goal. 

The service could have been driven, rather than relying on advertising and waiting for appropriate people to present themselves. Was this opportunity offered to GPs and they turned it down? Was pharmacy seen as a cheaper option?

Still living off crumbs

I don’t want to be a harbinger of doom or rain on anyone’s parade. I am sure that this opportunity will be a valuable extra source of income for many contractors that will take some pressure off the financial challenges they currently face. 

Many community pharmacies will make this work and successfully deliver the service. The sector has a history of this. After all, community pharmacies were the primary care providers that stayed open and were available for patients during the Covid lockdown rather than limiting face-to-face contact. And, as mentioned, pharmacy has an impressive track record in providing immunisation services. 

However, the sector still doesn’t seem to be truly recognised for these things. It still feels like pharmacy owners are living off the crumbs from the table rather than having a seat at the table. 

The Government, DHSC and NHS England have a goal – and community pharmacy will, as always, step up to help achieve this goal. But how is this being leveraged to improve the ongoing relationship pharmacy contractors have with ministers?

Everyone should be aspiring to work in partnership, but despite the new contract settlement, things still feel very adversarial to me. Developing a truly effective partnership will take some changes in mindset on both sides.