Since September 2024, RSV vaccination became an essential service routinely available to older adults as they turn 75 years of age, with an initial catch up also offered to adults who were aged 75 to 79 years on 1 September 2024. The programme was expanded on 1 April 2026 to also include all adults aged 80 years and over and all residents in care homes for older adults, who had not already received a dose through the initial programme.
Pregnant women should also be offered a single dose of the RSV vaccine from 28 weeks, and they remain eligible up until birth. Opportunistic or on request GP delivery of immunisations for pregnant women is part of the essential service requirement, although most women are expected to receive it through maternity providers. Where commissioners may want general practice to routinely provide this service, this will need to be commissioned locally over and above the core opportunistic or on request offer and giving due regard to procurement legislation.
UKHSA and NHS England have a shared communications toolkit which helps stakeholders communicate the benefits of the RSV vaccine to older adults and pregnant women, including a series of social media assets, posters, leaflets and videos from NHS England.
Guidance and patient resources, including the PGD template are available on the the Government website. If practices or commissioners have any queries, please contact england.vacspolicyandcontracts@nhs.net.
Expansion of RSV vaccine eligibility
Update, July 2026: The government has announced an expansion of the NHS RSV vaccination programme.
From 1 September 2026, the eligibility criteria will be expanded further to include adults aged 65 to 74 years in certain clinical at risk groups as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI):
- chronic respiratory disease, and/or
- immunosuppression due to disease or treatment.
Further detail for healthcare professionals is available in Annexe A of the documents detailing the expansion of the programme. The updated Green Book chapter is here.
RSV vaccination programme – national invitation campaign
From w/c 21 July 2026 NHS England will run a national RSV invitation campaign. Invites will be sent to unvaccinated individuals aged 80 years and over that became eligible for the RSV older adults vaccination programme from 1 April 2026.
A digital first approach will be followed for the campaign, and the invitation will include a call to action for eligible people to contact their GP to book a vaccination appointment. Separate invitations will be sent to individuals living in areas where community pharmacy providers are commissioned to deliver RSV vaccinations, as these invitations will include a link to NBS and the walk-in finder as well as the call to action for individuals to contact their GP.
Following the previous national RSV invitation campaigns there was a significant increase in the volume of RSV vaccinations administered to eligible older adults. It is expected that a similar trend will follow this campaign. Please therefore make sure your practice has sufficient capacity to meet the expected increase in demand for appointments.
Please also note that communications will be issued via the primary care bulletin to inform providers of the campaign.
If you have any queries, please contact the Immunisations Team directly at: England.londonimms@nhs.net.
RSV vaccination ordering – information for providers on choosing the correct product line
The same RSV vaccine, Abrysvo®, is used for both the older adult and the maternal RSV vaccination programmes; however, vaccine supply for each programme is managed separately by UKHSA for England and the UK. It is therefore important that when providers are ordering Abrysvo® vaccine, orders should be placed for the ImmForm product that is specific to each RSV protection programme.
Product ordered for the infant RSV protection programme (offered to pregnant women) should not be used for the older adult RSV protection programme and vice versa. Immform account holders will see two different product lines and should order accordingly.
General practice providers should order stock from the correct product line on ImmForm. Whilst the majority of vaccination will be in older adults, there may be a few occasions where there is an opportunity to vaccinate a pregnant individual and on these infrequent situations it would be acceptable to use the stock ordered for the older adult programme and then order stock from the maternal vaccine for infant protection product line to backfill that used.
For general queries and payment claims, please contact the London Imms Team at england.londonimms@nhs.net.