We wish to give our patients advanced notice that we will NOT be providing flu jabs at the surgery this year and will be encouraging patients to obtain their seasonal influenza vaccinations at community pharmacies instead.
As you may be aware, the seasonal influenza vaccination is an optional service that GPs can sign up to provide each year on top of their core NHS services.
Over the past few years, Community Pharmacies have been able to provide these vaccinations too and many of our eligible patients have had their flu jabs provided by community pharmacies, often alongside other vaccinations such as Covid boosters etc.
Regretfully, this has meant that for the past 2 years the surgery has made a financial loss on delivering the flu jab programme. This is largely because, believe it or not, we have to order our flu jab stock over a year in advance of the vaccination programme commencing.
For 2 consecutive years, more and more of our patients have chosen to have their vaccines at their community pharmacy and as such we have had significant amounts of surplus stock that we have purchased in advance for our patients but have been unable to be reimbursed for, as it remained unused at the end of the vaccination period. These losses are substantial and amount to tens of thousands of pounds that cannot be spent on other areas of your healthcare, such as additional staffing.
We also recognise that we have continued to experience increasing demands for appointments with our nursing team for blood tests, drug injections (B12, contraception etc) and wound care. By not taking part in the vaccination programme this will free up a large amount of clinical capacity which can be converted to additional nursing appointment availability for our patients.
Many of the local pharmacies will be offering flu jabs in Swadlincote and the surrounding area from September onwards. Patients usually eligible for free flu jabs at the surgery will have them provided free by the community pharmacy too.
We are in the process of finalising what arrangements will be put in place to support vaccination for patients who are housebound and/or in carehomes and will advise on this in due course.
We recognise that this will be disappointing to some of our patients but it’s a timely reminder that actions do have consequences and that when funding is diverted from your GP surgery, our ability to provide services is constricted.