NHS England is asking pharmacy owners for their views on the possible central procurement of flu vaccinations as proposed in the NHS Vaccination Strategy, published in December last year.

If adopted, it would mean flu vaccines used by community pharmacies and GP practices in NHS programmes would be centrally purchased and supplied free-of-charge by the UK Health Security Agency.

This approach would mirror that used for vaccines in other NHS vaccination programmes. Pharmacy owners would still need to purchase their own flu vaccines for non-NHS supply.

NHS England is seeking views on how any potential changes to the current supply chain model could:

• Increase or decrease efficiencies
• Enable the NHS to respond to in-season programme changes
• Direct supply into areas of low uptake and target specific areas and populations
• Create more equity in how vaccines are distributed around the country.

An online questionnaire asks about current arrangements that pharmacies have in place with manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, as well as administrative workload and vaccine wastage.

Commenting on the survey, Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at Community Pharmacy England, said a potential move to central procurement of flu vaccines would have “pros and cons”. However, at this stage, NHS England does not have a proposal on how vaccines could be distributed, he pointed out.

The efficiency of any distribution system from a pharmacy owner perspective and the equity of distribution of vaccines across all providers would be key matters on which to judge any future proposals from the NHS, he said.

“The survey seeks a lot of data which pharmacy owners will likely consider to be commercially sensitive, such as pricing of vaccines, discounts achieved and percentage split between NHS and private vaccinations administered,” Mr Buxton warned. 

“We have provided frank feedback to NHS England on the questions they have posed in the survey, which noted that should pharmacy owners have time to complete the questionnaire, it is very unlikely many will be minded to share commercially sensitive data with NHS England.”

The survey will close on Tuesday December 17.