Community pharmacies will be able to offer children flu vaccines

Community pharmacies will be able to offer flu vaccinations to children to support improvements in ‘access and uptake’, the government has announced.

Service delivery for two- and three-year-olds will begin in pharmacies from 1 October to ‘supplement’ the offer in general practice, which will start vaccinations from 1 September.

And community pharmacy service delivery for school-aged children will begin from 1 December for those who missed the opportunity to be vaccinated in school.

The government said that children in clinical risk groups from six months to less than two years cannot be vaccinated by a community pharmacy.

The annual flu letter, originally published on 26 February, has been amended by the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England to reflect this change.

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This follows a one-season pilot which saw around 4,000 community pharmacies deliver flu vaccines to two- and three-year-olds between 1 October 2025 and 31 March 2026.

Community pharmacies will also be able to provide flu vaccines to people experiencing homelessness, in line with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommendations.

The amended letter says: ‘For community pharmacy contractors, the requirements of the service will be set out in the directions and the community pharmacy service specification which will be published in due course.

‘These contractors should use the same legal frameworks (either patient group direction or vaccine group direction) as used for the rest of the national flu programme.’

Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) said: ‘We've long called for pharmacies to be commissioned to provide more childhood vaccinations, particularly for teenagers and older children given the alarming drops we have seen in take up since the pandemic among this age group.’

‘It's good pharmacies have been commissioned to provide flu vaccines to a wider group of children as well providing catch up vaccinations for those who might have missed out.

‘It is also important pharmacies have been given a role to support those experiencing homelessness, who often do not have access to GP services.

Recent NPA analysis found that flu vaccine uptake among children had dropped to 52% last year – and 8% decrease from the highs of 2018.

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In 15-16 year olds, it had fallen to a record low of 42%.

Mr Gregg added: ‘There is growing evidence to show that using pharmacies to provide more NHS vaccinations helps to improve uptake and therefore prevent instances of serious illness, particularly in deprived communities who have historically been less likely to get vaccinated.’

Professor Mahendra Patel, chair of the Royal College of Pharmacy's English pharmacy advisory council, said: 'This is a positive step towards improving wider access and uptake to vaccination across diverse communities.

'It’s essential this move is backed by appropriate training, funding and workforce planning to ensure community pharmacy teams can effectively strengthen the overall vaccination programme and protect children’s health.'

Children vaccinated in community pharmacy must not be offered egg-cultured inactivated influenza vaccine (IIVe), the annual flu letter adds.

Live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) will be supplied centrally by NHS England and through the Federated Data Platform and it is not reimbursable.

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Cell-cultured inactivated influenza vaccine (IIVc) will not be supplied centrally and should be ordered from the manufacturer or wholesaler directly – this will then be reimbursed in line with the community pharmacy service specification, the letter says.

There are no changes to the eligible cohorts for the 2026/27 national flu vaccination programme.

This story was updated at 13:04 to include a response from the Royal College of Pharmacy.