MenB vac: vaccine allocation and ordering guidance
NHS England has published guidance on their Futures website for pharmacy owners regarding the allocation and ordering of the vaccine to be used in the Meningococcal B (MenB) Vaccination Service.
The guidance explains how vaccine will be allocated, ordered and delivered to pharmacies and includes the steps which must be taken before vaccine orders can be placed.
Download NHS England’s Vaccine Supply and Ordering Guidance for Providers (log-in required)
Pharmacy owners signed up to provide the service are advised to read the guidance as soon as possible to ensure they can order and receive their first allocation of vaccines.
Initial process related to ordering the vaccine
In summary, pharmacy owners who wish to provide the service must:
- Register for the service before 11.59pm on 20th July 2026;
- List a minimum of 100 appointments per month* via Manage your Appointments (MYA) to ensure these are made available to patients to book on the National Booking Service (NBS);
- Register and complete their site acknowledgement page on the Federated Data Platform (FDP).
* Important note – the minimum of 100 appointments stated above is per month. The service goes live on 20th July, with it operating for 12 days during that month. There is therefore not an expectation from NHS England that pharmacy owners will offer 100 appointments on NBS during the available days in July. We advise pharmacy owners to offer appointments on NBS during July that are aligned with the initial allocation of vaccine to all pharmacies (10 vaccines – see below) and number of days the service is operational during the month.
An initial allocation of 10 doses of vaccine (one box) is allocated based on fulfilment of the above actions. Pharmacy owners must then actively place an order on FDP to draw down this stock as vaccine will not be dispatched automatically.
Each pharmacy providing the service will be allocated a fixed order delivery day, with a fixed order deadline each week.
Increased allocations of vaccine will occur automatically based on patient appointments booked through NBS ahead of order deadlines. However, pharmacy owners must actively ensure a new order is placed on FDP to draw down these allocations.
While offering walk-in appointments is a requirement of the service, NHS England’s guidance states that provision of these appointments can only be serviced using any surplus stock. There is no facility to order additional stock for walk-in appointments at the pharmacy site.
Do you need to review the number of appointments you are offering in July?
Pharmacy owners should plan their initial offer of appointments in July on the basis of the initial quantity of vaccine that will be delivered to them (10 doses). In subsequent weeks, if more appointments are booked on NBS by patients, more stock will be allocated to be ordered by the pharmacy. However, in the first few weeks of the service, pharmacy owners will need to keep a close eye on their available vaccine stock and appointment bookings for their pharmacy, with the potential that they may need to close some un-booked appointments to ensure that they do not have more bookings than vaccine available.
We suggest all pharmacy owners that have already posted their appointments on MYA for the first week of the service, urgently review them (ideally before Monday 13th July, when NBS opens for bookings) to ensure that the pharmacy is not offering more appointments than it will be able to fulfil, based on its initial allocation of vaccine.
NBS appointments in September and beyond
NHS England has also emailed pharmacy owners and staff registered to use MYA to manage NBS appointments to highlight that they will be undertaking updates to MYA on 6th August. These updates are enhancements to the MYA platform that have been requested by pharmacy owners and other users.
The email to MYA users asks them not to post any appointments for the period 1st September 2026 to 31st January 2027 until 7th August 2026 (i.e. after the system updates have been made).
NHS England and the UKHSA have been clear that patients should be encouraged to book their second dose of MenB vaccine as soon as they have received their first dose.
The delay to pharmacy owners being able to post appointments in September caused by the update to the MYA platform means that patients vaccinated for the first time in the first few days of August will have to wait until September appointments have been added by pharmacies to NBS from 7th August onwards before booking their second appointment.
Commenting on the NHS England guidance, Alastair Buxton, Director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England said:
“The NHS England vaccine supply and ordering guidance provides essential information for pharmacy owners and their teams who will be providing the MenB service, however, it should have been published sooner, before pharmacy owners were adding NBS appointments to MYA for the first couple of weeks of the service.
“This service has been stood up at a rapid pace by NHS England to respond to an unexpected need for a targeted vaccination programme, and a very large number of community pharmacies have responded positively to the request to deliver the vaccination programme, once again demonstrating the sector’s commitment to expanding the scope of the public health services it provides.
“We recognise it is not easy to predict the early demand for the vaccine from the start of the programme and we understand the desire for NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency to tightly control stock allocations due to the cost of the vaccine and the cohort size. However, the approach being taken to stock allocation is far from ideal, with no opportunity for additional stock to be rapidly provided where demand suddenly outstrips initial supply of vaccine. This will likely lead to unnecessary frustration for patients and pharmacy teams and we have been clear with NHS England that they need to improve their approach to vaccine distribution as soon as possible.”
