Is your practice ready for this year's flu and covid-19 vaccination season?
NHS England has stated that flu vaccination starts from 1st September 2025, for pregnant women and all eligible children, followed by other adult flu cohorts and Covid-19 vaccinations from 1st October 2025. We know it's already a really busy time for practices, so we're super excited to have released our Flu and Covid-19 vaccination rules to make recall as easy and smooth as possible!
👇 We've summarised some key points below:
💉 Who is eligible for the flu vaccine?
From September 1st:
- Pregnant women
- All children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2025
- Primary school and secondary school aged children
- All children in clinical risk groups aged from 6 months to less than 18 years
From October 1st:
- Adults aged 65 years and over
- Adults aged 18 years to under 65 years in clinical risk groups
- Those in long-stay residential care homes
- Carers in receipt of carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person
- Close contacts of immunocompromised individuals
- Healthcare and hospice workers
🤔 Who is eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine?
From October 1st:
- Residents in a care home for older adults
- Adults aged 75 years and over
- People aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed
📆 What are the key dates?
- From 1st September 2025 until 12th December 2025: Pregnant women and all eligible children
- From 1st October 2025 until 31st March 2026: All other adult flu cohorts
- From 1st October to 31st January 2026: Covid-19 vaccination programme
💡 What rules are Abtrace offering?
We have rules covering all the cohorts who are eligible for flu and Covid-19 vaccinations for the autumn/winter campaign 🙌
🤩 We love these rules - how can we enable them?
These rules are already automatically enabled! You can also review all your enabled rules in your Rules Management Portal (admin users). You can also then use these rules to set up an automated recall, to automate all your vaccination invites in just a few clicks (see how to do it here) 🙌
⏰ We want to invite people as early as possible, to get ahead with the vaccination campaigns - can we do this?
Yes! We've created an Early Eligibility Register to help your practice stay ahead this vaccination season:
- 🗓️ October Register – Includes all patient cohorts eligible from 1st October
This register allows you to:
✅ Identify patients early
✅ Start inviting them ahead of the eligibility window
✅ Ensure smooth scheduling and outreach
💡 Note: This early register will be automatically retired once the eligibility window opens and replaced by our standard flu rules.
References
Flu and Covid-19 Seasonal Vaccination Programme: autumn/winter 2025/26
