While the cost of private pharmacy flu jabs has continued to rise in some high street chains, others have frozen their prices and are charging the same amount as last year.
Boots is once again charging the most for a private flu vaccine for those ineligible for free jabs on the NHS.
At £21.95, it is the highest price out of all the pharmacy multiples, but the health and beauty giant has decided against a price rise this year, instead keeping its costs the same as last autumn.
Read more: Starmer gets flu jab as 4.3m get vaccinated
Superdrug has also kept its prices at the same rate as last year, offering health and beauty card members the jab at a “competitively priced” £9.95 – the lowest price on the market that C+D can spot.
Non-members, however, will have to pay £19.95 for a flu jab, which is available in more than 180 pharmacies across the UK.
Read more: Which pharmacies are cheapest for private Covid jabs in 2025?
Similarly, Tesco and Morrisons have kept private flu vaccine prices frozen, with the former charging £16.
For those heading to Morrisons for the jab, Morrisons More card holders can pay £12 while non-members will be charged 15 – the same offer as last year.
Read more: Pharmacies to offer flu vaccines to toddlers for the first time
Looking at another supermarket pharmacy, Asda broke the trend by raising its prices by almost £2 from £13 to £14.97.
Meanwhile, Rowlands is also charging £2 more this year with the shot costing £19.99.
Well Pharmacy, however, has set the record for the smallest price increase this year – the flu vaccine rose by just 1p to £18.
“Record number”
Moving to independents, Newdays Pharmacy group owner Olivier Picard told C+D earlier this autumn that his pharmacies were charging £18.50 for private flu jabs.
And private services provider Pharmadoctor chief executive Graham Thoms noted that most of its independent partner pharmacies are charging between £18 and £20.
Read more: Asda offering 60p flu jab for first 6,000 patients booking online
He told C+D that Pharmadoctor’s partner pharmacies were giving a “record number” of flu jabs this autumn.
In September and October, they had already given “more flu jabs than they did in the entire six months – September to March – of the 2024/25 flu jab season”, he said.
Thoms also told C+D that the number of patients who received Covid jabs privately in October was “five times” higher than the previous record in the same month last year.
Read more: BREAKING: DH imposes ‘unacceptable’ frozen flu jab fee
It comes after Asda revealed in September that it was offering 60p private flu jabs for the first 6,000 patients to celebrate its 60th anniversary.
Meanwhile, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) announced in August that the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) had decided to freeze the fee for delivery of NHS flu vaccinations in 2025/26 for the seventh season running.
CPE said at the time that it was a “very disappointing decision” that was “driven by the available budget that NHS England (NHSE) holds for vaccination services”.
