Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Programme

Patient Medical Records

HSE PharmaVax System meets the legal record-keeping requirements regarding the administration of seasonal influenza vaccination. This means that whether you administered a private influenza vaccine or an influenza vaccine provided by the HSE, you are not required to make a separate entry of this administration onto the patient medical record (PMR) system.

Consent Form

In order to give valid, informed consent, a person should be provided with written a verbal information. They are required to clearly understand the nature of the intervention, the risks and benefits of receiving vaccination and to make an informed choice about whether or not to proceed.

Individuals aged 16 and older can give their own consent. However in the case of children under the age of 16, the parent/legal guardian consent is required in order to proceed.Consent forms can be paper-based or electronic format and must be stored in line with GDPR requirements.

It is a legal requirement to retain the consent forms in an unalterable format for a period of 8 years (2 years on the pharmacy premises) and to have a system in place where you can retrieve these consent forms if requested.

Post-Vaccination Observation Period

Professor Smyth, Chief Medical Officer, requested NIAC to review its guidance on the post-vaccination observation period. NIAC’s response can be read here.  The position from NIAC remains the same.

“Vaccine recipients should be observed for at least 15 minutes after vaccination. If this is not practicable, vaccine recipients should wait in the vicinity for 15 minutes.”