Sir, this year, in order to reduce the risk of the dual threat of seasonal influenza and coronavirus, the UK government has expanded the eligibility criteria for flu vaccinations to include those over 50 years of age, shielding households and all school year groups up to year 7. This represents approximately 30 million people.1 The operational challenges provide an opportunity for innovative models of delivery. Underpinned by collaborative discussions between various organisations we propose potential models to support the delivery of this enhanced programme:

  • Foundation dentists to provide additional immunisation capacity

  • Dental team members to deliver vaccinations with Primary Care Network (PCN) teams or School Aged Flu Provider workforce in school, primary care and/or community settings

  • Use of dental surgery premises by immunisation teams to complement existing community settings that are known and accessible to the public

  • Flu vaccination in a dental setting. This could reduce the number of contacts between the public and clinical settings and could be done for specific cohorts and/or opportunistically.

Another avenue is the potential for dental workforce vaccinators to support the catch up of adolescent immunisation programmes such as HPV and meningitis, delayed due to pandemic school closures. Once a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 becomes available, it is expected that delivering a large-scale immunisation programme will raise significant logistical issues. If the above models have evaluated well, dental care providers would be well placed to support the delivery of such programmes.

Any of the above models would need to take into consideration certain factors such as training, competency sign-off, indemnity, funding and regulatory approval. There is now a short window of opportunity before the beginning of the flu season to explore these possibilities but the lessons learned from the pandemic response might provide an opportunity to strengthen the dialogue between medicine and dentistry.