Patients aged fifty years and over to be offered flu jabs and COVID-19 boosters

The government has confirmed suitability for the COVID-19 booster vaccination following advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, in addition to declaring plans to broaden access to the NHS flu vaccine.

The government has announced that, from September 2022, everyone in England over fifty will be offered a COVID-19 flu vaccination and booster jab.

This follows advice published on 15 July 2022 from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which also recommends a COVID-19 booster jab for people in a clinical at-risk group between the ages of five and forty-nine; frontline health and care workers; and carers aged between sixteen and forty-nine years.

In a statement published recently, the Department of Health and Social Care accepted the JCVI’s advice. It announced additional plans to broaden eligibility for a free flu vaccine for patients aged 50-64.

However, the government’s U-turn has been criticised by community pharmacy representatives after including the cohort, despite the government stating in March 2022 that the age group won’t be included in the NHS flu vaccination programme.

Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at the PSNC, stated: Many pharmacy contractors originally ordered flu vaccines on the basis that the [fifty–sixty-four-year age group] cohort would be included in the programme, as they had been for the previous 2 years. They then had to amend these orders when government decided in March not to include fifty–sixty-four-year-olds in the flu programme. The latest volte-face by the government means contractors need to undertake further work, potentially undoing what they did earlier in the year. This is not the way important public health policy should be handled; we hope lessons will be learnt to improve the quality of the policy development process in the future.”