In News

Follow this topic

Bookmark

Record learning outcomes

Pharmacies that fall within some neighbourhoods in three Midlands Integrated Care Board (ICB) regions are being invited to submit tenders to provide vaccinations against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and pertussis. 

Up to 66 pharmacies will be recruited to provide this new enhanced service, which is envisaged as being rolled out across England at some point in the future. They will be paid a £9.58 item of service fee for each RSV and pertussis vaccine administered to eligible patients.

The invitation to tender is open to certain postcodes and localities within the following ICB regions, with up to 22 pharmacies in each ICB region to be selected:

• NHS Black Country ICB
• NHS Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland ICB
• NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB.

This follows the recruitment last year of a number of pharmacies in the East of England to provide RSV vaccines and the introduction of a general practice RSV vaccination programme in September 2024

Tenders are being accepted until 5pm on Monday March 31 after an initial deadline of March 14 was extended. The service, which will be offered to both infants and adults, is expected to run from May this year until March 31, 2027, with commissioners having the option to extend it for a further two years, 

Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at CPE, commented: “The commissioning of further pharmacies to provide RSV and pertussis vaccinations, building on the great work of the early adopters in the East of England, is a welcome and strategically significant development. 

“We believe further commissioning of pharmacies to provide NHS vaccination programmes can help address falling vaccine coverage, particularly in relation to less well-served groups of the population. 

“Our agreement with NHSE to use a national advanced service to commission a vaccination service in response to population needs is really positive news and is an approach we want to see repeated in the future. 

“We believe such an approach can best support ICBs to easily commission community pharmacies to help address their populations’ unmet vaccination needs once ICBs take on delegated responsibility for vaccination commissioning in April 2026.”