Pharmacy owners using the National Booking Service (NBS) to offer appointments for adult flu and Covid-19 vaccinations can now post appointments within the system, according to Community Pharmacy England (CPE).
From 1 September 2025, patients will be able to use the NBS to book vaccination appointments for 1 October 2025 onwards.
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The functionality within NHS Profile Manager – which was added last year so pharmacies could add a link to their own flu vaccination booking system within their NHS website profile – remains in place. The use of NBS for booking flu vaccines is optional.
If pharmacy owners have not yet registered for NBS and would like to do so, they must complete the NBS registration flu form by 1 September 2025.
The NHS urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26, published in June, highlighted the importance of increasing vaccination rates to ‘deliver a better winter for our patients and staff’.
In the same report, the NHS committed to expanding use of the NBS for flu vaccination following feedback that the restrictions on the NBS and lack of information was ‘suboptimal’. This includes keeping it open until the end of the flu campaign in March.
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The plan promised to develop a ‘flu walk-in finder’ so that, from October 2025, patients can look up when they can walk into a community pharmacy to get a vaccination.
In June, an NHS legislative amendment meant that community pharmacists would be given access to flu vaccines for children from national stocks.
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NHS England has also urged pregnant women to get vaccinated against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) ahead of this winter as the number of cases rise.
Around 100 community pharmacies in the East of England and the Midlands are now delivering the RSV vaccine, alongside maternity services and GP practices.
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