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A further 200 community pharmacies are set to be commissioned in 2025/2026 to provide respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.
In public health guidance published on 14 April 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care said that NHS England would “expand and support evaluation of the community pharmacy vaccination offer by up to 200 sites in identified target areas”.
NHS England also said it would ensure everyone in the RSV vaccine catch-up cohort aged 75–79 years on 1 September 2024 would be offered a vaccination by 31 August 2025.
In 2025/2026, NHS England will maintain the ongoing catch-up and year-round RSV programme offer to people from the age of 75 years and pregnant women from 28 weeks, the guidance said.
In 2024, NHS England announced that it would commission up to 50 community pharmacies to provide RSV vaccines from September 2024.
As part of a wider RSV vaccination programme, 25 contractors in NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) and 25 contractors in NHS North East Essex ICB were commissioned to provide the service.
In addition, in a letter published on 24 June 2024, NHS England said that GPs and NHS trusts would be commissioned to provide the Abrysvo RSV vaccine to all adults turning 75 years on or after 1 September 2024, as well as to all women who are at least 28 weeks pregnant.
The first RSV vaccine for older adults was approved in the UK by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in July 2023.
In April 2025, NHS England said that community pharmacies could offer “catch-up” human papillomavirus vaccinations, and in March 2025, it announced plans to commission community pharmacies to provide whooping cough vaccinations.
Commenting on the expansion of the RSV pharmacy vaccination service, Malcolm Harrison, chief executive of the Company Chemists’ Association, said: “We are pleased to see that the NHS wishes to expand the RSV vaccination offer by up to 200 pharmacies across 2025/2026. Pharmacies can increase access and convenience for patients so they can receive vaccines when and where they want them. We encourage the NHS to continue to expand the number of pharmacies included in programme at pace.
“We urge that pharmacies are commissioned to deliver a wider range of NHS vaccines nationally, including RSV, pneumonia, shingles, meningitis and routine childhood vaccinations. Taken together, we estimate that this could free up 10 million GP appointments each year,” he added.
“Alongside existing pharmaceutical services, this expansion would increase access and give patients greater choice. This is especially important as vaccine uptake remains a concern, especially amongst underserved and vaccine-hesitant cohorts.”
Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at Community Pharmacy England, said: “The commissioning of further pharmacies to provide RSV and pertussis vaccinations, building on the great work of the early adopter pharmacies in the east of England, is a welcome and strategically significant development.
“We believe further commissioning of pharmacies to provide NHS vaccination programmes can help address falling vaccine coverage, particularly in relation to less well-served groups of the population.
“Our agreement with NHS England to use a national enhanced service to commission a vaccination service in response to population needs is really positive news and is an approach we want to see repeated in the future. We believe such an approach can best support ICBs to easily commission community pharmacies to help address their populations’ unmet vaccination needs once ICBs take on delegated responsibility for vaccination commissioning in April 2026.”
