Pharmacy Flu Service - 2013/14

Background
Flu services are now being commissioned  by the area teams of NHS England.  There are 2 area teams covering our region.  One team covers  Cumbria, Northumberland  North Tyneside, Newcastle, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland  and the second team covers Durham, Darlington and Tees.

As each LPC has traditionally  negotiated flu services separately with their own  PCTs we thought it would make sense for us to form one regional group to negotiate for the service.   


This group has been working hard to get the service commisioned.

Flu Service 2013/14
We can now confirrm that the area team covering Gateshead & South Tynside is intending to commision the NHS flu service this year through pharmacy.   

The regional group have put a website together to act as a central portal of information for flu this season.  The site can be accessed at www.northernpharmacy.net   and will be updated as soon as information is available.  Details of SLAs,  PGDs, marketing and resources will all be held on there for easy access.

You will be able to access this site through our own website also. 

TRAINING
Whilst we are waiting for the specific detail of the service we understand that everyone will need to undertake training. (Either full training as in previous years or an update training)

North of Tyne LPC, Gateshead & South Tyneside LPC and Sunderland LPC have jointly  organised training for contractors and their pharmacists in the North and South of Tyne area.  The training will ensure you have the relevant competencies required to provide the NHS Seasonal Flu Vaccination Service.

We have arranged training with Novartis again.  This means that many of you will not need to attend a live session but will be ok to complete an online update.

Full details can be found on our Flu training page  http://www.northernpharmacy.net/nt-gst-s-lpc.html  

Please make sure you read this information and register for the training that is relevant to you.  The LPC would encourage you to act on this as soon as possible so you don't miss out on training and are in a position to roll out your flu service quickly. The LPC is again subsidising the cost of training and the cost to pharmacists is the most competitive price we have found.

---