The national director of NHS flu resilience has has written to all PCTs and strategic health authorities in England, instructing them to include frontline pharmacists and their staff in the priority H1N1 vaccination programme.
Ian Dalton also confirmed that the assessment of whether or not a pharmacist qualified as “frontline” would be carried out by individual authorities, with the criteria being based on regularity of contact with patients.
Mr Dalton said: “Those pharmacists and their clinical staff, or for that matter other professions, who have regular clinical contact with patients and who are directly involved in patient care, as part of their pharmacy practice, will be eligible for the vaccine.
“Similarly, pharmacists, their clinical staff and other health professionals falling outside that definition will not be eligible for vaccination.”
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