A flu vaccination walk-in finder that will help patients easily look up where they can walk into a community pharmacy to have a vaccine is to launch later this year, NHS England has announced.

In its new urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26, NHS England has unveiled plans for a ‘flu walk-in finder’ in a drive to allow patients to access flu vaccinations in pharmacies more conveniently.

The initiative it set to begin ‘from October 2025’, according to the plan published today.

The move will come alongside an expansion of the use of the National Booking Service for flu vaccination ‘to make more appointments available, including keeping it open until the end of the flu campaign in March’, the plan added.

The changes are part of NHS England’s aims to ‘reduce demand for urgent care later this year’ and ‘protect the most vulnerable and keep vital health and care services running when respiratory viruses surge’.

Currently, patients can look online to locate pharmacies that offer walk-in appointments or book appointments online to have vaccinations, once the NHS vaccination and booking service is open.

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NHS England said changes were being made in response to ‘feedback last winter that the restrictions on the National Booking Service and the lack of information on clinic times were suboptimal’.

It comes as a recent NHS legislative amendment means that community pharmacists are set to be given access to flu vaccines for children from national stocks.

Today’s plan also said work would be taken to develop local plans on how to ‘strengthen the childhood vaccination offer’.

‘Increasing vaccine uptake among children is one of the most impactful interventions, with every thousand childhood vaccinations saving around four hospital admissions,’ NHS England said.

As a minimum, it said it expected the regional plans to set out how:

  • GPs and school-aged immunisation providers will increase vaccination rates, working with local directors of public health
  • Local campaigns will target those in clinical risk groups

The plan also suggested that some systems would be asked to test the use of health visitors to administer childhood flu vaccinations and other routine immunisations for eligible children.

Action should also be taken at a regional level to set out the ‘delivery approach’ to the year-round respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination programme for older adults and pregnant women.

NHS England recently announced plans for up to 200 additional pharmacies to offer the RSV immunisation programme during 2025/26, on top of the around 40 community pharmacy sites that currently offer the national programme.

In announcing the new urgent and emergency care plan today, the government said it had been backed by nearly £450m investment ‘to expand urgent and emergency care facilities to provide faster care for patients’.

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It pledged to ensure patients receive ‘better, faster and more appropriate emergency care’, including by rolling out almost 500 new ambulances and around ’40 new same day emergency care and urgent treatment centres’.

Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘The package of investment and reforms we are announcing today will help the NHS treat more patients in the community, so they don’t end up stuck on trolleys in A&E.’

Chief executive of NHS Providers, Daniel Elkeles, said the ‘emphasis on vaccination’ within the plan was ‘welcome’.

‘There is a lot to like about this plan. It’s helpful that we’re seeing it in early summer, with time to ensure meaningful measures are in place ahead of the added pressures of winter,’ he added.

Chief executive of the Company Chemists' Association (CCA) Malcolm Harrison said the organisation 'fully support' commitments to expand the National Booking System and 'take advantage of the access community pharmacy offers'.

'Pharmacies have proven time and time again that they can offer increased capacity for vaccination programmes,' he added.

'They offer a route to boost both the confidence in and uptake of vaccinations, especially amongst underserved communities.

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'There has been steady growth in the number of flu vaccines administered by community pharmacy since the programme was launched, but we can do even more.'

However, he stressed that it was 'vitally important that the NHS develops integration between the National Booking System and existing booking systems'.

'This will allow patients to take full advantage of community pharmacy without increasing workload on stretched pharmacy teams,' said Mr Harrison.