Pharmacies in England and Scotland are to offer private Covid jabs – for £45

Covid vaccinations will be available privately in Britain for the first time this year, with patients already booking appointments for the £45 a pop jabs.

Pharmadoctor – a company that provides clinical service packages to pharmacists – has announced that jabs will be available to patients aged 12 and over – provided they pass a face-to-face consultation with a pharmacist.

There are currently 27 pharmacies in England and Scotland listed as offering appointments for the jabs and the company said it expected this number to grow.

“In the coming weeks, as pharmacists come on board to offer the service, the network will expand and we expect it will mirror the private flu service we have thousands of pharmacies offering every year,” said Graham Thoms, CEO of Farmedokter.

The latest booster jabs have been limited to selected population groups, with the latest only being offered to over-65s, carers, frontline healthcare workers and the clinically vulnerable, and have so far only been available through the NHS.

That has meant many people have not had a booster jab since the end of 2021, and experts have warned that their protection will have diminished over time. As a result, many have called for Covid jabs to be made available privately, just like flu jabs, to provide protection against both Covid and long Covid.

Pharmadoctor said the first vaccine offered would be the updated Novavax jabwhich targets the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

“But as more vaccines are licensed for use in the private market, they will be added to the service,” he said.

The Novavax jab is a protein-based vaccine that uses more established technology than some other Covid shots, meaning it may be more acceptable to some concerned about newer types of vaccines based on mRNA or adenovirus platforms – such as the Pfizer/BioNTech or AstraZeneca Covid jabs respectively.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, said the version that will be given privately protects against Omicron variants, including the currently circulating JN.1 variant. But he added: “It is likely that the mRNA-based vaccines will also be available privately soon.”

While some have raised concerns about the poor uptake of recent booster jabs among those eligible for the free jabs, it appears pharmacists are already experiencing demand for the paid service.

“This morning I had received seven bookings for April 1, when it actually goes live,” says Cyril Siou from Nightingale Pharmacy in Southampton.

Dr. Simon Williams, a behavioral scientist at Swansea University, said the development was welcome but questioned the £45 cost. “The decision to offer Covid-19 boosters to buy privately is from the perspective of the public health is a good thing. Like the flu vaccine, this means more people now have a choice about whether they want to reduce their risk of getting sick from Covid, including reducing their risk of getting long Covid,” he said.

“However, this new development is not ideal. The fact that the jabs cost £45 excludes many people, especially those on low incomes, who cannot afford it.”