General practice threatens to withhold repeat prescriptions until patients have flu vaccine

General practices are being warned not to let their push to deliver flu vaccinations this winter spill over into “bad behaviour,” after a practice was reported to healthcare leaders for threatening to withhold repeat prescriptions from patients until they had been vaccinated there.

The unnamed practice was reported to NHS England and Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group by local pharmacists, who became aware that patients who were eligible for a flu vaccination had been told that they could not receive drugs on repeat prescription until they had had a flu vaccination at the practice. The practice subsequently withdrew the threat after being warned by commissioners over its conduct. …