Pharmacy-led vaccination centres will be paid an enhanced fee of £20 per Covid vaccine between 25 December and 3 January, in a bid to support them to ‘set up additional clinics’.

NHS England said this comes ‘in light of the further vaccination effort required in response to the Omicron variant’.

Pharmacy sites were already being paid an enhanced fee of £15 per jab Monday to Saturday, and £20 on Sundays and bank holidays during the booster drive.

The news comes as the Government last weekend brought back the target date for offering all over-18s a Covid booster jab between now and 31 December.

The UK is currently facing a fresh wave of Covid infections, with the new Omicron variant showing signs of spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant.

It comes as the Prime Minister has written NHS staff saying the Government and nation are ‘right behind them’ through the booster campaign.

NHS England vaccination fee note in full

NHS England’s bulletin said: ‘In our 7 December operational note, we announced an increase to the Item of Service (IoS) fee to £15 per COVID-19 vaccination (administered on weekdays and Saturdays from 1 December 2021 to 31 January 2022), and an increase to £20 per COVID-19 vaccination (administered on a Sunday or Bank Holidays) over the same period.

In light of the further vaccination effort required in response to the Omicron variant, we are now extending the IoS fee to £20 per COVID-19 vaccination administered between 25 December 2021 to 3 January 2022 inclusive. This is to support PCN and CP sites to set up additional clinics during this period.

The IoS fee will continue to be £20 per COVID-19 vaccination administered on Sundays in December 2021 and Sundays in January 2022 as previously announced. The ES and LES will shortly be updated to reflect this.’

A version of this story first appeared on our sister website, Pulse.