NHS England has set out preliminary plans for the Autumn Covid boosters

Source: NHS England and NHS Improvement 22.6.22

Primary Care

New contracts and full details about an expressions of interest process for community pharmacy and an opt-in process for general practice involvement in the COVID-19 vaccination programme from autumn 2022 will be published shortly.

Finance

Variations to the COVID-19 vaccination contracts for general practice and community pharmacy will be published shortly, along with specifications for Vaccination Centres, Hospital Hubs and the 2022/23 flu service. The national allocation for the COVID-19 vaccination programme covers the whole of the 2022/23 financial year. The existing financial framework – a mix of item of service and reimbursement – remains in place to the end of August. From September, to give greater flexibility to systems to meet the needs of local communities, we will be issuing fixed allocations. These will be based around a fixed unit payment across all delivery models, with an additional supplement for people who are housebound. Regions will therefore receive an allocation, shown at ICB level, made up of three parts as follows: (i) core activity, based on total expected doses at the standard rate per dose; (ii) funding to design an accessible network and deliver engagement activities to increase uptake across communities, shaped by indicators of rurality, ethnicity, and deprivation; (iii) funding to maintain a degree of ‘surge’ capacity based on population size. Because the programme allocation for the year is fixed, the value of (ii) and (iii) will be influenced by the spend in the period to August.

Click here to read the source letter