Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has shared funding details for the one-off meningococcal B (MenB) vaccination service announced earlier this month.
The negotiator said yesterday that it had finished negotiations with NHS England (NHSE) on funding for the service, which commences on July 20 and is only being commissioned through community pharmacies.
Pharmacy owners will receive £10.06 for every vaccine administered - and will also be eligible for £300 after delivering at least one vaccine, as well as £400 if 100 or more are administered by the end of March 2027.
Read more: Pharmacies to vaccinate students in ‘one-off’ MenB programme
This is to “recognise the work involved in establishing the service” and “encourage uptake”, CPE said.
It added that funding for the service comes from the NHS vaccination budget, not the pharmacy funding contract sum, and the vaccine will be centrally supplied so “no claim for reimbursement of vaccine costs will apply”.
Protecting young people
The service, announced this month in response to the MenB outbreak in Kent earlier this year, aims to “protect young people heading to universities or residential further education settings ahead” of the start of the autumn term.
The eligible patients are all Year 13 students, under-25s entering university or residential further education for the first time and international students under 25 entering their first year of university.
CPE said two doses of the vaccine should be administered to “provide full protection to eligible patients”, with the second dose being given at least 28 days after the first, and “ideally” before term starts this September.
Read more: Pharmacy sector calls for meningitis jabs after outbreak
It comes after the National Pharmacy Association warned in March that pharmacies were facing “unprecedented” demand for meningitis vaccines amid the outbreak of the disease in Kent .
The UK Health and Security Agency announced days later that 20,000 MenB jabs from NHS supply would be “made available to the private market to ease current demand experienced by pharmacies”.
