Flu and COVID-19 Seasonal Vaccination Programme: Autumn/Winter 2024/25
Vaccination is a high priority action for the NHS, to protect people from serious illness and to support NHS and adult social care resilience.
Ensuring that eligible people receive high quality information about vaccination from people they trust, and providing a convenient offer in which people have confidence, are critical actions to maximise protection.
Who is eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine?
- residents in a care home for older adults
- all adults aged 65 years and over
- persons aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group, as defined in tables 3 and 4 of the COVID-19 chapter of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) Green Book on immunisation against infectious disease
- frontline health and social care workers
- staff working in care homes for older adults
Who is eligible for a flu vaccine?
From 1 September 2024:
- pregnant women
- all children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2024
- primary school aged children (from Reception to Year 6)
- secondary school aged children (from Year 7 to Year 11)
- all children in clinical risk groups aged from 6 months to less than 18 years
From October 2024, exact start date to be confirmed by NHS England in due course:
- those aged 65 years and over
- those aged 18 years to under 65 years in clinical risk groups (as defined by the Green Book, Influenza Chapter 19)
- those in long-stay residential care homes
- carers in receipt of carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person
- close contacts of immunocompromised individuals
- frontline workers in a social care setting without an employer led occupational health scheme including those working for a registered residential care or nursing home, registered domiciliary care providers, voluntary managed hospice providers and those that are employed by those who receive direct payments (personal budgets) or Personal Health budgets, such as Personal Assistants
Next steps
The National Booking Service (NBS) will be opened for participating sites to post COVID-19 and flu appointments from Monday 16 September 2024. It will be open for bookings from the public from Monday 23 September 2024.
The last available appointment date on NBS will be Friday 20 December 2024 for both flu and COVID-19.