This makes life easier for many patients. From Sunday, nurses will be able to administer all the vaccines provided for from the age of 16 “without prior medical prescription”, according to a series of texts published on Saturday in the Official Journal, which also extend the prerogatives of pharmacists and midwives.
Three months after a favorable opinion from the High Authority for Health (HAS), the government validates the extension of “vaccination skills” for these three professions, which have proven themselves during the Covid-19 epidemic.
This decision primarily benefits 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”. “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.
New also for pharmacists and midwives
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 FSPF – the main union in 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.
Moreover, the range of vaccines that midwives can “prescribe and perform” in pregnant women, newborns and “people who live regularly in their environment” is aligned on the same pathologies.