Each year, many LPCs across the country present a case to their local NHS commissioners for using community pharmacy to provide seasonal ‘flu vaccinations. Over the last four years, an increasing number of LPCs have been successful and some have gathered data on the delivery of the service.

Pinnacle Health has, in the past, managed both the data capture and vaccine supply for pharmacies on the Isle of Wight and published the results for the benefit of community pharmacy generally. The most recent peer reviewed research paper concluded that involvement of community pharmacies in the seasonal influenza vaccination programme can help increase vaccination rates and is associated with high levels of patient acceptability.

As many LPCs will currently be working on proposals for this service, it seems timely that Pinnacle Health has worked to bring together the experiences of the Isle of Wight, other evidence and the most recent PharmOutcomes® data to provide LPCs with an exemplar business case, as part of their commitment as a social enterprise to encourage commissioning of community pharmacy services.  Bearing in mind that in 2012-13, just over 100 practices out of 11,077 across the country managed to reach coverage of 75% or above in at-risk groups, community pharmacy as an additional provider of the service can argue that targets were not met last year in most areas of the country.

Any service proposal requires local detail to ensure that it meets local needs, but this free resource, produced in conjunction with PSNC, provides national data sets in an easy to use format and has been developed for LPCs to use to assist their negotiations.  LPCs are free to choose whether they use it or not.

Please send any feedback to Pinnacle Health at info@phpartnership.com and any successful proposals and service documentation to  Rosie Taylor, Head of Service Development, for inclusion on the PSNC services database.

LPCs have been informed of relevant issues for seasonal flu services through previous PSNC Briefings and may also be interested in the ten questions for scrutiny of vaccination programmes produced by the Centre for Public Scrutiny.

Business case for Seasonal Flu (updated June 2015)

If you have any queries on this PSNC Briefing or you require more information, please contact the PSNC Services Team at: Services.Team@psnc.org.uk.

To browse other PSNC briefings on the services and commissioning click here.