NHS England praises community pharmacies for Covid vaccination effort

NHS England has expressed its ‘particular thanks’ to community pharmacies for delivering over five million Covid vaccinations to date.

In yesterday’s primary care bulletin (3 June), Dr Nikki Kanani and Ed Waller, NHS England’s medical director and director for primary care, said the vaccination programme had met ‘another major milestone’, with over 55 million people now vaccinated.

‘We’d like to give particular thanks to the over 500 community pharmacy vaccination sites who have delivered over five million vaccinations,’ they added.

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Vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, also publicly thanked the community pharmacy sites on Twitter yesterday for their ‘fantastic efforts’ in delivering vaccinations.

‘Over 500 community pharmacies have delivered over five million vaccines in England – including my own vaccination at Avicenna pharmacy in Lewisham,’ the minister said.

‘Thank you to the staff and volunteers at #communitypharmacy local vaccination sites for their fantastic efforts,’ he added.

Jo Churchill, minister for public health and primary care, joined Mr Zahawi in celebrating the ‘tremendous news’, while also commenting on the sector’s delivery of a ‘record’ number of flu jabs last winter - both of which she said ‘demonstrated how trusted our pharmacy teams are by their communities to help look after their health‘.

Other pharmacists and pharmacy bodies also took to Twitter to praise the sector’s effort.