It’s been a year of change on the vaccinations front, and the flu campaigns for 2021 are no different. Previously you could vaccinate only your own patients, but this year the rules have all changed. We could forgive you for thinking that this is just unnecessary complication, but when you read the specification, it does start to make sense. That said, there are still plenty of problematic paragraphs to get your head around.

One of the trickiest aspects appears to be the ability to vaccinate certain non-registered patients. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a total free for all. Quite the opposite! But this is the important bit:

Section 2 defines the list of ‘Patients’ as being those in the list at 9.1.

So, reading this for the first time, we can expect payment for ‘Patients’ as defined in the list at 9.1 which includes non-registered patients (it also includes all our other at-risk groups). Section 13 gives the criteria for payment and validation, and section 13.7 further defines the criteria that need to be met. 13.7.3 gives ‘Patients’ as part of the criteria. Who comes under ‘Patients’, as we’ve said above, is defined in Section 2 as being the eligible patients at 9.1.

Following? No… we wouldn’t blame you for that either.

In other words, Section 2 defines ‘Patients’ as the list at 9.1, and section 13 states you’ll be paid for the vaccination of ‘Patients’.

If you’ve ever found yourself with your head in your hands after reading page after page of NHSE enhanced service missives, you might find our guide to flu campaigns both helpful and uplifting. We’ve provided information about the flu and childhood flu campaigns [PLUS] in ‘bite-size’ chunks so you can have a quick scan and feel like you’ve got to grips with it. We can’t promise that we’ve covered every clause because, well, that would just be rewriting the specification, and we know that would be no help whatsoever. So instead, we’ve taken our usual no-nonsense approach and highlighted the bits we think you’ll find most helpful. We’ve also included our usual SMS and Facebook messages to help take some of the legwork out of your practice’s campaign. We have also produced a raft of flu campaign posters [PLUS] and template letters [PLUS] which you might find useful.

Helpful links:

• Flu campaign 2021 [PLUS]
• Children’s flu campaign 2021 [PLUS]