Immediate Necessary Treatment – Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Programme

Purpose and outline

The seasonal flu programme is a long, established vaccination programme that is proven to save lives and deliver a cost-effective prevention programme. High levels of flu immunisation is one of the most effective interventions that can be made to reduce harm from flu and pressures on health and social care services during the winter. Flu is a key factor in NHS winter pressures. It impacts on both those who fall ill and the NHS services that provide direct care and on the wider health and social care system that supports people in at-risk groups. The annual immunisation programme is a critical element of the system-wide approach for delivering robust and resilient health and care services throughout the year, helping to reduce unplanned hospital admissions and pressure on A&E.

The current 2021/22 seasonal influenza programme has now been expanded to include a new cohort for frontline primary care staff and enables the vaccination of some eligible cohorts regardless of whether they are registered with the GP practice. The cohorts that can be vaccinated by any practice are:

frontline health and social care staff employed by:

  • a registered residential care/ nursing home
  • a voluntary managed hospice provider
  • those living in:
  • long-stay facilities
  • nursing homes
  • other long-stay health or social care facilities
  • a house bound Patient (defined in the ES specification)

locum GPs

primary care contractors (primary medical services, pharmaceutical services, primary dental services or general ophthalmic services) and their frontline staff, including locums, involved in the patient-facing frontline provision of NHS primary care services and non-clinical staff who play an integral part in patient-facing care on a day-to-day basis

For those patients who are unregistered with the GP practices will need to recorded with Immediate Necessary Treatment status and coded as needs influenza vaccination.

GP practices receive an item of service (IoS) payment of £10.06 per dose administered of each patient eligible for seasonal flu vaccination.

How this service is commissioned and provided

NHS England Regional Local Offices commission this service from GP practices.

NHS England service specifications

Information about this service

  • Quality service start date: 1st September 2021
  • Quality service end date: 31st March 2022
  • Payment period: One off –payment expected in May 2022
  • Collection frequency: Annual – One off
  • Manual or automatic entry: Automatic
  • Included in data collection: All system suppliers (Cegedim, Emis and TPP)
  • Co-commissioning: No
  • Classification: Vaccination and immunisation programme
  • Payment count/clinical codes

Commissioners and practice should refer to the supporting business rules for information on management information counts and clinical codes.