Just a few months into the 2020/21 flu season, community pharmacies in Wales have already exceed the total number of vaccinations, 64,094, administered during the 2019/20 flu season.

By the end of November, community pharmacies in the country had carried out 73,626 flu vaccinations, Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW) confirmed to C+D last week (December 10).

This is a 30% increase on the 56,791 flu jabs given across the Welsh community pharmacy network by the end of November 2019.

Commenting on the figures, a CPW spokesperson told C+D: "With continuing strong uptake and a new 50-64 cohort included too, without a doubt we will be not just be breaking but smashing records this year.”

From earlier this month (December 1), pharmacies in Wales have been able to offer the flu vaccine to those aged 50-64, under the continued expansion of this year’s flu vaccination programme

“This extended age group is a clear addition to the largest ever flu vaccination programme in Wales and take up of the vaccine is already extremely high,” the CPW spokesperson added.

Other groups included in this year’s expanded flu vaccination programme are adult residents in Welsh prisons and household contacts of those on the NHS shielded patient list.

Earlier in the autumn (October 29), C+D reported that English community pharmacies had administered more than 1.7 million flu vaccines since the 2020/21 service began  – breaking last year's record number of jabs in just two months.

 “Completely out of appointments”

Nathan Raymond, director of Mendus Pharmacy in Pembroke, south west Wales, told C+D last week (November 11) that while demand for flu jabs has been higher this year, it has been more difficult to source vaccinations.

“While we were lucky enough to receive our preordered delivery of vaccines – about 450 in total – quite early in the season, the unprecedented demand meant these were all booked up within about a week or two,” Mr Raymond said. This led to “some regular patients who had their jabs with me for the last several years not being able to get an appointment”, he added.

Ordering additional flu vaccinations was not possible, as “all remaining stock had been secured by the government”, he said, adding that by the start of October, the pharmacy had “completely run out of appointments”.

The pharmacy finally got “our hands on more stock” the first week of December, but “the delay in us receiving these means that the demand isn't there now”, Mr Raymond said.

Explaining that he is now “faced with the prospect of binning up to a couple of grand's worth of jabs at the end of the season”, Mr Raymond said he “feels a bit let down by the lack of  communication by those higher up the food chain” and wishes “we had been kept informed as to what was happening with the vaccine stock”.

At the end of last month (November 25) , the Welsh government said it had secured nearly 460,000 additional vaccines for 2020/21 and was making it available to GP practices and community pharmacies across Wales

C+D has approached the Welsh government for comment.