Flu Jab - different when you pay?

[ReasonablySane]

I had a flu jab today and because I don't fall into any NHS buckets, I paid for it. I'm fine with that. The pharmacist told me that I get a different jab because I'm private, ie, in a Lloyds Pharmacy and paying.

I would have pressed him, but I was in a hurry and had my son with me. Has anyone else had this experience? What is "different" about it?

I had my flu jab at Lloyd's but qualify for free one, no mention of it being different. They do seem to get stock earlier than my GP so maybe a different manufacturer?

Surely not!

I took university aged dd to a city centre Boots on a Saturday afternoon for our pid for flu jabs and we were ten minutes early and it was like a rugby scrum. There was a tiny waiting room crammed with and the lady in charge looked harassed to death.

We gave our details to the lady and 'checked in' and everyone was told that it was a nurse administering the jab as they did so and we were sent to the other side of the shop and asked to sit on empty chairs (no such luxury on the scrum side) and the actual pharmacist glided over from the ridiculously busy prescription counter and took us into a different tiny room from everyone else and did the jabs.

No, you don't get a different one because you pay.

But there are two different injectables (every year) - one for over 65s (? - I think that's the cut off age) and one for younger people.

So you might have misheard something about that - you might indeed have been getting a different one to others waiting, but it won't be because you're paying

It's the same vaccine. I paid for mine, DH gets his on NHS.

@SellingFairytales In Boots they are doing NHS and private. My first appointment was cancelled because they had a new pharmacist who hadn't been accreditied on the system. It was explained to me that the NHS Nurses there administering aren't covered by insurance to do private jabs so I had to go back.

Adult dc and I were jabbed together. I'm eligible for free jab, they are not. We watched the pharmacist preparing the injections. Everything she used was identical for all of us.

The flu jab each year is specific to that year's flu strain. There may be slight differences depending on whether you have the inhaled jab or the injected jab, or whether you have specific conditions that require a specific jab, but they will ask be designed to fight the same strain.

That's correct - the one for under 65's is not as effective in people over 65. Go figure!