A LEADING pharmacies body in Wales has called on the Welsh Government to engage with them to tackle an “urgent need” to deliver Covid vaccines.

Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW) wrote to the health minister on Thursday to say only one of Wales’ seven health boards had approached pharmacies about giving vaccines.

In the letter sent to Mr Gething this afternoon CPW wrote: “Community pharmacies need to be involved at scale in providing the vaccine.

“To date only the Hywel Dda LHB has even asked for expressions of interest from community pharmacists in participating.”

They said even the contractors who had expressed an interest have not been commissioned to provide vaccines.

“Everything needs to be sped up,” they added. “At a minimum all community pharmacies who are currently delivering flu vaccines should be immediately invited to participate and absolutely no pharmacy that expresses an interest should be turned down.”

There are more than 600 pharmacies accredited to deliver flu vaccinations across Wales.

The Welsh Government said community vaccine pilots would start on Friday.

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Almost 113,000 people in Wales have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, which is about 3.6 per cent of the population.

Shadow health minister Andrew RT Davies described the letter as a “damning indictment”.

“Pharmacies in England are joining the fight against the virus and starting to play their role in the rollout of the vaccination programme, and here in Wales there is great enthusiasm from pharmacies to do just the same,” he said.

“Community pharmacies are a trusted and friendly face on the high street and need to be deployed as soon as possible to expand the vaccination roll out across Wales.

“It is worrying they have yet to be commissioned and engagement has been so minimal, and this could be another example where the Welsh Labour Government is forced to play catch-up.

“This dither and delay could cost lives and livelihoods and it’s now imperative the First Minister eases the pressure on the health minister and appoints a dedicated vaccinations minister to deliver the rollout at rapid speed.”

Six community pharmacies in England are offering vaccinations from Thursday, with 200 providing jabs in the next two weeks.

The Welsh Government said: "We welcome the appetite from CPW for pharmacies to deliver the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

"More pharmacists - and other primary care contractors, such as dentists and opticians - are being invited to help the huge effort to vaccinate people against coronavirus in the weeks and months ahead, subject to sufficient supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine."