Running COVID-19 vaccination services
As pharmacy teams play a key part in vaccination across Great Britain, our inspection team have gathered a range of examples of notable practice in providing COVID 19 vaccination services
If you or members of your team are involved in providing vaccination services, take a look at the examples below to see if there’s any learning you could apply.
Principle 1 – Governance
A pharmacy is using ongoing observation audits to support the safe and effective running of its COVID-19 vaccination site. It is sharing the learning from these audits to help inform practice and to continually drive improvement. The audit involves the clinical lead observing the practice of both volunteers and vaccinators on an individual basis. The volunteer or vaccinator then engages in a discussion with the clinical lead which encourages reflection on their practice. The pharmacy encourages team members to share information from the observation audits during its daily briefings, which provides further opportunities for team members to discuss their practice and share ideas.
Principle 2 – Staff
A pharmacy is regularly reviewing its workforce to help support a safe and timely vaccination service. Shortly after beginning the service the pharmacy identified that unforeseen circumstances could see unintended delays between vaccination appointments. In order to manage this situation it had set up an extra vaccination station and vaccinator which it used when required, to help keep appointments running to time. The pharmacy had recruited a full-time coordinator to help manage the workload of its marshals onsite. And it had reviewed the minimum number of marshals it needed to help manage the service smoothly.
Principle 4 – Pharmacy services, including medicines management
A pharmacy is working collectively with an Imam to improve vaccine confidence among patients. The local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group are supporting the work by promoting a short video presented by the Imam in Urdu. The video highlights the importance of attending for the vaccination once an invite is received. And it also focusses on the importance of a person not changing their behaviour once vaccinated. The pharmacy has also accommodated site visits to share information about its vaccination service. And in order to meet people’s individual needs the pharmacy has also ensured its team of vaccinators includes multi-lingual pharmacists of different genders.
A pharmacy is providing its COVID-19 vaccination service from associated premises. It had used feedback which indicated there may be some confusion about the location of the vaccination site to inform changes to its website. This helped protect workflow at the registered pharmacy and improve accessibility to the service. A flash note on the website now informed people of the vaccination site location. Further information provided included a map to help people find the site, details about COVID-19 vaccination groupings and a link to the national booking system. Wider health information associated with COVID-19 was also available to people through the website, including details of symptoms, self-isolation and test and trace.
Read more examples on our inspections knowledge hub and see our COVID-19 vaccination page for information about providing services.
