Thankfully with the reveal of the 10-year plan came the news that I hoped. The government laid out that pharmacy will play a far bigger role in prevention through screening services and vaccine delivery, including providing a catch-up service for the HPV vaccination from 2026.
More detail needs to be revealed about what that ‘bigger role’ will entail, but what’s clear is that pharmacy has been acknowledged as a vaccination linchpin - especially when it comes to immunising children and those enduring health inequalities.
Read more: Pharmacy to ‘transition’ from dispensing to clinical services by 2030
Studies show that children in England are far less likely to have received key childhood vaccinations if they live in an area of deprivation.
Vaccine uptake has been steadily declining in England over the past decade, with notably lower levels of uptake in childhood vaccinations since the pandemic.
One of the key childhood vaccines - the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella jab), as well as HPV (human papillomavirus) - reveals some of the starkest healthcare inequalities.
Missed opportunities
Studies show that children living in poorer areas have lower uptake of the HPV vaccine – a vaccination that has been proven to reduce the chances of cervical cancer in later life.
And women living in less affluent areas have a 65% higher chance of being diagnosed with that type of cancer.
Measles – an illness that can become serious if unvaccinated - also disproportionately affects children and adults in deprived areas.
Read more: DH ‘exploring’ NHS childhood flu jab rollout in pharmacies
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that England could no longer consider itself measle free having slipped below the uptake needed to achieve herd immunity.
Community pharmacy could significantly help to readdress these health inequalities.
Pharmacy is perfectly placed
A primary objective of the NHS England vaccination strategy is to improve the accessibility of vaccinations to increase uptake against a backdrop of worrying drops in childhood immunisations.
The strategy talks about vaccination delivery in ‘convenient local places’ – a phrase which couldn’t more perfectly describe community pharmacy.
According to the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA), more pharmacies exist in deprived areas. And they provide more vaccinations within these communities than in affluent ones.
While it may not be applicable to all services, pharmacy’s ‘appointment-free model’ is a major factor in its success in attracting hard-to-reach groups, especially those who are reliant on public transport.
Safe hands
With community pharmacy, the government, the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care know vaccination campaigns are in safe hands.
During the 2024/25 winter season, it helped administer over four million flu vaccines – marking the highest number outside of the pandemic. And in 2021, over a third of community pharmacy COVID-19 vaccines were provided in the 20% most deprived communities.
Read more: Pharmacies deliver record number of flu jabs ‘outside of pandemic’
Extending into children’s vaccines would be an easy transition – assuming the right funding was in place.
Both the clinical and technological capability needed to make vaccination campaigns a success are tried and tested in community pharmacy.
Our own platform, which will soon be granted assurance from NHS England to become a point-of-care system for the autumn/winter flu and COVID-19 vaccination season, has been designed with extending pharmacy’s vaccination remit in mind.
Parental trust
But it’s not just convenient access helping to drive this.
The CCA also adds that pharmacies have greater success in attracting groups that are statistically more likely to be vaccine-hesitant.
Read more: Pharmacies to deliver HPV catch-up jabs from next year
Vaccinations, especially for children, remain a complex and controversial issue. But a 2023 study by the UK Health Security Agency found that 66% of parents have a high level of trust in vaccination information received from pharmacists.
And another piece of research by Community Pharmacy England indicates that 85% of people are in favour of pharmacy delivering a wider range of vaccinations.
Let’s get on with it
Calling up pharmacy to take a more active role in childhood vaccinations – and indeed all vaccination campaigns – feels like the logical, and necessary, direction of travel.
Community pharmacy has proven itself to be more than capable of delivering vaccines at scale, building patient trust and providing access where, and when, it’s needed. So, now the plans are laid – let’s get the detail nailed down and let pharmacy get on with it.
Tracey Robertson is managing director of Cegedim Rx