The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) welcomes the news that the first six local community pharmacy sites will begin vaccinating patients against Covid from today. On this historic day, we reiterate our call for the NHS in England to make even greater use of community pharmacies to provide the Covid vaccine as soon as possible.
Two of the CCA’s members, Boots and Superdrug, are part of the first wave of community pharmacies who will begin delivering the Covid vaccine programme from today. Further local vaccination sites run by community pharmacies are expected to launch in the coming weeks.
Commenting on today’s news, Malcolm Harrison, Chief Executive of the CCA, said: “Today, we celebrate the hard work of everyone who has made it possible for community pharmacies to vaccinate people against Covid. It is a phenomenal achievement.
“We want to build on this success and work with the NHS in England to make greater use of the army of community pharmacists who can administer the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. It requires similar storage and administration to the annual flu vaccines which community pharmacies have a track record of providing safely and at scale.
“Using the established network of pharmacies would bring the vaccine into local communities, meaning older people and those in at-risk groups can be vaccinated much closer to home. We are continuing to work with the NHS to develop a model that will allow them to make use of pharmacies across the country to vaccinate the population, helping the NHS reach the target of 13.9 million vaccinations by mid-February.”