Three months after a favorable opinion from the High Authority for Health (HAS), the government validates the extension of “vaccination skills” for nurses, pharmacists and midwives, who have proven themselves during the Covid-19 epidemic. From now on, they will be able to vaccinate more widely, and this from Sunday April 24, according to texts published on Saturday April 23 at Official newspaper.
This decision primarily benefits the nurses, now “qualified to administer, without prior medical prescription” vaccines against fifteen diseases: influenza, rabies, diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, whooping cough, human papillomavirus, pneumococcus, hepatitis (A and B), meningococci (A, B, C, Y and W). Caregivers will be able to perform these injections on all people “aged 16 and over for whom these vaccinations are recommended”.
“Reinforced access to prevention”
“This is a first step towards more autonomy for the profession and, for our fellow citizens, the guarantee of enhanced access to prevention”welcomed the president of the order of nurses, Patrick Chamboredon.
Pharmacists are also “authorized to administer” the same list of vaccines to the same population aged 16 and over, but always on presentation of a medical prescription. “To be able to prescribe them, we are awaiting an opinion from the drug agency”recently seized by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, explained Philippe Besset, president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France (FSPF), the main union of the profession.
This green light is hoped for by the fall, knowing that pharmacists have recently negotiated fees of 7.50 to 9.60 euros per vaccine injected, which will be reimbursed by Social Security from October.
Furthermore, the range of vaccines that midwives can “prescribe and practice” in pregnant women, newborns and “people who regularly live in their surroundings” is aligned with the same pathologies.