Allisons Chemist

07/09/2025

More dates added on the national booking system for NHS COVID & flu jabs
Flu jabs also available
as walk ins
Link in the comments

04/09/2025

Good afternoon,

Our COVID vaccination service starts on the 1st October and appointments are available on the national booking system website (link below). More appointments will be added over the next few weeks.

As previously mentioned, free NHS COVID jabs are now only available for those aged 75 by 31st January 2026) and those who are immunosuppressed. This means that only people who qualify for a booster in spring are entitled to one in autumn. The eligibility criteria for free NHS flu jabs has not changed.

Please don’t book a COVID jab if you’re not eligible for one. This means that a member of reception will be forced to have a difficult conversation when you turn up at our clinic. It slows us down and it’s not really fair as it’s not nice for staff and technically it risks a person who needs a jab, not getting one.

If you would like a private COVID jab then please don’t book on the NHS system. We will be putting a list of patients together who want one in the pharmacy.

Thanks for your understanding.

Link to book

https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/vaccination-and-booking-services/book-covid-19-vaccination/

03/09/2025

Our NHS flu and COVID vaccination service start on the 1st October in the Globe Hotel.

Flu jabs are available as walk ins like always. If we have a big enough allocation of COVID jabs we will make them walk ins too, but until we know that for sure then COVID jabs will need to be booked. The link to book is below. We will add more dates over the next few weeks.

Please remember that free NHS COVID jabs are now only available to the over 75’s and the immunosuppressed. The eligibility for flu is the same as last year so please don’t get it confused and book a COVID appointment if you’re not eligible this year.

Information on availabilty of our private flu and COVID jabs will follow soon.

Link to book an NHS COVID jabs

*PLEASE DON’T USE THIS LINK FOR PRIVATE JABS*

Book, change or cancel a COVID-19 vaccination appointment online.

02/09/2025

**THANKS GUYS I THINK WE’RE SORTED**

Good evening,

Wondering if anyone can help us. One of our vans broke down whilst out on deliveries this afternoon and we are struggling to get it back into town to a garage. It’s in the big lay-by just past the Mockerkin turn off on the Lamplugh road. Somehow in my wisdom the only breakdown cover we have is on the newer, more reliable van.

Can anyone recommend a reliable service who could get the van back to Cockermouth? It’s gone into ‘limp’ mode so it can technically drive, but not very far.

Thanks

01/09/2025

Good evening,

We’ve received a number of calls and messages today about flu and COVID vaccinations for this autumn. This has been in response to invitations being sent out by surgeries.

You are free to get your jabs from wherever you want and we will be starting our service in early October. We are arranging staffing for the clinics and will put out our clinic dates shortly.

NHS flu jabs will be available as walk ins as always. Private flu jabs will be available for £15. NHS Covid jabs will be available at the same time, but we will have to see what our allocation is before we know if we can run walk in clinics. By the end of the week we will hopefully have appointments on the national booking service website for NHS Covid jabs. Private Covid jabs will be available during clinics and will cost £80.

We will keep you updated here as things get finalised. We still plan to visit the village halls we always visit and the dates for these will follow once they’re booked in.

Thanks

31/08/2025

Good morning,

I’d be surprised if you hadn’t heard about the imminent changes to the pricing of the most popular weight management medication, which comes into play from tomorrow.

Below is a link to our price list (scroll to bottom of webpage on our travel website) and we also include the prices for the alternative we offer. Please note that at present any switches between medications with us require you to start the new medication at the lowest dose and work your way back up.

Patients currently enrolled with us will be charged at our current prices for their September supply. We will look at what stock we have left after this but, we have lots of patients enrolled and we receive significant numbers of NHS prescriptions so this stock will go pretty quickly. Patients already booked in to start in September will also definitely get their first pen at our original price. To be fair to everyone we can only supply one pen at a time, before I get asked this question again. Also, squeezing a second appointment in before the end of the month won’t mean that both supplies are at the August price.

The pricing information is on the website. I won’t be responding to questions on here as I’m out for the day.

Thanks

https://www.cumbriatravelclinic.co.uk/services/latest-price-list

28/08/2025

We’ve had a few parents in with their children lately to get a private Chickenpox vaccine. During the consultation it became clear that they initially didn’t realise that this was a service we offered and thought the nearest place was in Carlisle.

We’ve offered this service for years now, but our website spend is clearly not quite as much as that of Boots!! 😂

Please give us a call if you’d like to book an appointment.

https://www.cumbriatravelclinic.co.uk/services/chickenpox-vaccine

23/08/2025

Good morning,

At this time of year my focus is generally on flu and COVID vaccinations, but recent significant events surrounding the well known weight loss medication has taken up much of that.

Anyway, I’ve previously mentioned that this season will see the number of people eligible for a free COVID jab decrease considerably due to new eligibility criteria put in place by the NHS. Only those aged 75 or over and those classified as immunosuppressed now qualify and there are no exceptions.

In response to this we will be offering a private service this season, but it’s the first time we have done so and we have no idea what demand will be.

The vaccine we plan to use is made by Pfizer. It’s expensive for us to buy and comes in packs of 10 vaccine. We will charge £80 for our private service and to help us gauge demand it would help if we knew how many people would like to use the service.

It’s likely to start in late September and run for as long as we can obtain vaccine and whilst the demand is high enough to ensure that it’s viable for us to run the service.

A ‘like’ or comment on this post is enough for now. I’ll maybe put together a list of interested patients nearer the time. Please don’t ring the pharmacy about it as I’ve not told them my plans yet!!

If you don’t believe in vaccines then that’s absolutely fine and that’s your choice. We are just providing an option for those who do.

Thanks

21/08/2025

Good evening,

I’ve had a very busy first week back after being on holiday and have seen lots of patients for consultations. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, there is an imminent sizeable increase in the wholesale price of the weight loss medication used in the majority of clinics and that’s been a hot topic as this increase will obviously have to be passed on to some extent.

I’ve not had a definite price that we will be paying from our wholesalers, so I am not going to release our prices once the new prices kick in on the 1st September just yet.

We have been trying to secure as much stock as we can before this date, but unfortunately so is everyone else so we aren’t getting anywhere near what we are ordering. We are also seeing increased prescriptions for the medication which is an additional challenge to overcome.

What we will do is commit to providing the next two pens to existing patients at the current price from this week onwards. To be fair to everyone, we will only be providing pens one month at a time and whatever stock we have left after the next two supplies will remain at the current price until all pre-September stock is used.

We do have a decent stock of the lowest titration dose, so any new supplies in August and September will also be at the current price.

We will have our new prices finalised shortly.

I hope that this helps.

20/08/2025

A massive congratulations to Nat (me) 😂 who has officially been with Allisons for 20 years. Little did I know when I turned up from the second city that I’d still be here all these years later! It’s been an eventful 20 years that’s for sure. Thanks to all the staff for the balloon and the beers 👍🏾

17/08/2025

This is an important message about NHS COVID vaccines for the autumn programme, which is due to start in October.

This autumn will see a big change, where those who are eligible for a free COVID jab will massively decrease to ONLY those aged 75 and over and those with immunosuppression as defined in the chapter of the JCVI Green Book I have outlined here. So this means that only those eligible for a COVID jab in the Spring are now eligible in the Autumn.

To confuse matters, NHS FLU jabs will be available in Autumn for those aged 65 or over and those with chronic qualifying conditions such as Asthma, diabetes, heart disease etc. This means that many will be eligible for a free FLU jab but not a COVID jab. This is an NHS decision, but we will have to enforce it at our clinics and hope that you’ll understand.

Thanks

15/08/2025

Now it’s hard to post about this topic as facebook removes posts with drug names in them. It should be obvious what I’m talking about but I’ll try to reference them in the comments and just use their initials in the post.

It’s been in the press and I’ve had a few queries whilst I’ve been away about the impending significant increase in the trade price of M (from 1st September).

The UK had been getting the drug for significantly less than other parts of the world and it appears that there’s been a lot of noise about this, most notably from President Trump.

So in response to this, the manufacturer has obviously decided to increase the price it sells to the UK for, rather than decreasing what it charges the rest of the world.

Like every other clinic, we have tried to secure significant additional stock to provide a buffer to our existing patients. Unfortunately, we are seeing orders fail due to huge demand so we are not getting everything we order. We will try our best to obtain stock so that we can at the very least supply a further month at current prices to patients already with us but we will have to see how the next few weeks go.

The medication isn’t cheap to start with and will be at the limit of some people’s budget, so in order to remain on a weight management programme they will have to consider a more viable option. That will be W at our clinic. Whilst the results aren’t quite up to what has been seen with M, it is still a very effective medication and one which was the main option up until recently. In an ideal world, the choice would be based on effectiveness alone, but that’s not the world we live in.

I’ve included a link to a concise and impartial comparison between the two. Hopefully the link doesn’t get us kicked off facebook.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/mounjaro-vs-wegovy

We can switch patients to this with little fuss and whilst not ideal, that option will be there for those who want it. Hopefully, nothing happens with the price of this medication going forward but that’s out of our hands.

I’ve been away so I haven’t worked out what our prices will be, once the September stock starts to arrive. I will get something sorted next week.