Communications received from Sanofi regarding issues that have affected the manufacturing of flu vaccines for the 2026/27 season came out last week. These issues have meant Sanofi have either cancelled orders from pharmacies for their IIVr vaccine or the order quantity has been reduced.

CPE have discussed this with NHS England’s national vaccinations team and they have informed us that following productive discussions with both the companies (Sanofi and Seqirus) that will be supplying adult flu vaccines to the UK market in the 2026/27 season, there will be sufficient vaccine in the system for the campaign. Seqirus have confirmed to NHS England that they can provide alternative supplies of vaccine to pharmacies affected by order cancellations or reductions and they will be making targeted calls to affected pharmacies to support ordering an alternative product.

The acknowledgement page on the FDP Supply Dashboard will reset on Friday 21 August for the winter 2026 COVID-19 and child flu LAIV vaccination programme. Completing this step is essential to:

• Order vaccine
• Ensure vaccine is delivered to the correct address

Providers that have not completed the acknowledgement page will be unable to place vaccine orders on FDP.

Sites currently vaccinating on the COVID-19 year-round vaccination pathway and the time limited offer 4CMenB vaccination programme will also need to complete the acknowledgement page again before raising any orders.

What to do:

1. Log into the FDP Supply Dashboard
2. Review and confirm your details:
   • Delivery address
   • Lead name and contact details
   • Storage capacity
3. Update any incorrect information and click ‘Accept’

Important: Your delivery address determines where vaccine will be delivered. If this is incorrect, contact your ICB as soon as possible to arrange a correction.

New providers: Providers joining the programme will be granted FDP access in due course and can complete the acknowledgement page once access is received. Where a new FDP account has been requested through the system access request form, this has been pre-populated within FDP except for storage capacity. New providers must check this storage capacity detail and update on the acknowledgement page. If an FDP account is required, this can be requested here.

Important: If you have used FDP to order COVID-19, LAIV children’s flu and/or 4CMenB vaccines previously, you do not need to apply for FDP access again. Your existing FDP account should already provide access to the Site Acknowledgement Page. You can access the page directly using the following link: Supply Dashboard

Support available:

Short video guides are available: How to Accept the Acknowledgement Page and How to Update Storage Capacity (bitesize) – Vaccinations and Screening – Futures

For any errors or queries, contact your ICB as soon as possible using the escalation template.

Adult Vaccinations

Registration for the Autumn/Winter Adult Flu and Covid-19 vaccination campaigns closes by 11.59pm on 31 August 2026.

You will still be able to sign up via MYS after the deadline but it is not guaranteed that vaccination will be received in time for the 1 October launch 2026.

Childhood Flu

In order to provide the service from 1 October 2026, please ensure you register to provide the campaign by 11.59pm on 31 August 2026. If you wish to participate but miss the first deadline you may sign up to participate but it is not guaranteed that you will receive vaccination prior to 1 October 2026.

The Final deadline to register to provide the Childhood Flu Vaccination Service in 2026/2027 if the first deadline has been missed is 11.59pm on 30 November 2026.

NHS England has, this week, published the first version of their Seasonal Vaccination Provider Programme Guide for autumn/winter 2026/27 on the Futures platform (login required).

The guide brings together the key operational information required for pharmacies to provide the adult flu, COVID-19 and children’s flu programmes. All pharmacy owners signed up to provide any of the vaccination programmes should download and read the content relevant to the services they will be providing.

Updated versions of the guide will be published at the above web address throughout the season, so pharmacy owners should always refer to the latest version.

From 1st September 2026, community pharmacies must record all NHS vaccinations in the Record a Vaccination Service (RAVS) IT system, either accessing the service directly or via an approved pharmacy IT system.

NHS England is currently working with pharmacy IT suppliers in an attempt to make it easier to access RAVS from their systems. However, pharmacy owners will still need to sign up for a RAVS account if they do not already have one.

Pharmacy owners are advised to contact their current IT system provider to request an update on this integration work and to confirm if their current system will support integration with RAVS for the coming season or whether use of RAVS as a standalone system will be required.

Read more about RAVS

RAVS user guide

Pharmacy owners without access to RAVS can request access through the following link.

If you have any technical difficulties with using or accessing RAVS, contact the RAVS support team.

On 13th August 2026, NHS England sent an email update to pharmacies registered to provide the MenB, COVID-19 or Children’s Flu vaccination services to inform them that following a changeover to a new vaccine logistics supplier, the ordering and deliver of vaccines would return to a flexible delivery day system. This means that, rather than being limited to a single fixed delivery day each week, pharmacies will be able to choose from a range of available delivery dates when placing an order, selecting the day that best suits their clinic schedule.

This will provide a better, more responsive approach to ordering and delivery of centrally purchased vaccines for pharmacy owners and their teams. Further details on the change can be found in NHS England’s email to pharmacies.

Pharmacy owners must use the NHS Business Services Authority’s Manage Your Service (MYS) portal to register to provide COVID-19 and adult flu vaccinations in the autumn/winter 2026/27 season.

Any pharmacy owners who registered to provide COVID-19 and adult flu vaccinations by 31st March 2026 (using the NHS England Microsoft Form, which was used before MYS was updated to include the service registration on 1st April 2026) will have their registration for the two vaccinations transferred into MYS and do not need to register again.

Pharmacy owners who did not provide COVID-19 vaccinations during the Spring 2026 campaign or who deregistered from the service during the campaign programme must register/re-register if they intend to provide COVID-19 and adult flu vaccinations in the autumn/winter 2026/27 campaign.

To provide COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as adult flu vaccinations, from 1st October 2026, pharmacy owners had to register via MYS by 31st July 2026 in order to be guaranteed to receive supplies of COVID-19 vaccines ahead of the 1st October service commencement date.

Pharmacy owners can still register to administer both vaccines after the initial cut off date, however, it is not guaranteed you will receive vaccine in time for 1st October. The final deadline to register to provide COVID-19 vaccinations in 2026/27 is 11.59pm on 30th November 2026.

The service is being expanded to include opportunistic vaccination of two additional groups:

• Clinically at-risk children aged 2 years to 17 years; and
• Catch up vaccinations of school aged children (Reception to Year 11).

Meaning that the full service covers:

• [From 1st October 2026] All children aged 2 and 3 years of age on 31st August 2026 – that means children who were born on or after 1st September 2022 and on or before 31st August 2024;
• [From 1st October 2026] Children aged from 2 years to less than 18 years who are classed as clinically at-risk or in another risk group (excluding those in the people experiencing homelessness risk group) in the Green Book;
• [From 1st October 2026] Young people aged 16 and 17 years old who are in the ‘people experiencing homelessness’ risk group as defined in the Green Book; and
• [From 1st December 2026] Any primary school and secondary school aged children, from Reception to Year 11, who missed the opportunity to receive a flu vaccination from the School Aged Immunisation Service and are not clinically at risk.

Children aged less than 2 years of age on 31st August 2026 are not covered by the service.

Children aged 2 years to less than 9 years old in a clinical risk category and receiving influenza immunisation for the first time, will require a second dose of the appropriate vaccine at least 4 weeks after the first dose. Where two doses of vaccine are required, pharmacy owners should note that a failure to give both doses may leave a child incompletely protected.

Following the recent announcement that people experiencing homelessness (as defined in the Green Book) 16 years and older will be included in the national flu programme from 1st October 2026, the Children’s Flu vaccination service specification has been updated this week to cover 16 and 17 year olds.

The service specification for the 2026/27 programmes have been updated to include people experiencing homelessness. As defined in the Green Book, 16 years and older will be included in the national flu programme from 1st October 2026, the Children’s Flu vaccination service specification has been updated this week to cover 16 and 17 year olds.

The wording in the Adult Seasonal Vaccination Service Specification already allowed vaccination of this new eligible cohort.

From 1 September 2026 pharmacies registered to provide this service will be able to vaccinate pregnant women.

From 1 October 2026 Remaining eligible cohorts vaccinations commence. This includes adults aged 75 years and over, residents in a care home for older adults, and individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed. 

Resources to support spring COVID-19 vaccinations are available via the following link to the DHSC campaign resource centre: Spring vaccinations | Campaign Resource Centre

Materials to assist pharmacy owners to promote availability of the service include:

• Communications toolkit
• Posters
• Social media assets
• Digital screens

Translated resources are also available.

We have developed a range of materials which pharmacy owners can use to promote the availability of this service to patients. 

Our shared folder (link below) allows you to download the latest versions of the following resources: 

• Posters for display (both ready to use and editable versions); 

• Suggested social media graphics and messages; 

• Letters to eligible patients and local care providers; 

• Flyers for attaching to prescription bags; 

• Template local press releases; 

• Radio scripts; and 

• Materials to support hosting an MP pharmacy flu jab visit. 

Download here: Flu Vaccination Service promotional materials 

UKHSA easy read flu leaflet

The below listed leaflets are also available in Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese (simplified), Cantonese (traditional, Cantonese), Estonian, Farsi, French, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Latvian, Lithuanian, Panjabi, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Romany, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Turkish, Twi, Ukrainian, Urdu, Yiddish and Yoruba via the below links.

UKHSA patient leaflet – Flu vaccination: who should have it this winter and why

UKHSA flu leaflet for pregnant women

Copies of these leaflets can be ordered from the Health Publications Order point or by phoning 0300 123 1002 and quoting the reference numbers on the back pages of the leaflets.

Flu immunisation for social care staff
Leaflets for social care staff and providers to support the annual flu programme.

Posters

UKHSA easy read flu poster

A quick links poster with QR codes to the Pregnancy: how to help protect you and your baby (the leaflet describes the vaccines, including the flu vaccine, that are recommended during pregnancy) and the COVID-19 vaccination: a guide on pregnancy and breastfeeding leaflets (2021).

If pharmacy owners decide to develop their own marketing materials to promote the service they must ensure they comply with the requirements of the Terms of Service relating to promotion of services funded by the NHS.

If pharmacy owners choose to use the NHS identity on their marketing materials they must follow the primary care guidelines for use of the NHS identity.

An A-Z style guide of words and phrases about health and the NHS, which aims to make content aimed at patients easy to understand, is available on the NHS website. The NHS website team try to use words on their website that people use themselves when they talk about their problems and when they search for information on the internet. Community pharmacy teams may wish to refer to the guide when producing their own health content or communication materials.