By Vicki Mathias
Evening Post
BRISTOL, England — Hospitals arranged campaigns, including direct e-mails and pamphlets in pay slips, encouraging staff to attend clinics for the vaccines and when the outbreak took hold more people signed up for the jabs.
But there were enough vaccines left in NBT stores that spare stocks were given to NHS Bristol for the general community - a situation described as “not good enough” by one senior manager. The overall public takeup of seasonal flu vaccines among people in at-risk groups from the virus was considerably higher.
NHS Bristol reported that in November 68.8 per cent of over-65s invited for the vaccine had received a jab, while 38.5 per cent of under-65s in “at risk” groups, such as those with long-term health conditions, had received the inoculations by November.
It is expected that more people have now had the jabs, although the latest figures were not due to be compiled until the end of the month. Hospitals were particularly busy with flu and other respiratory illnesses during December, leading to a “very small” number of routine operations being cancelled.
At Bristol Children’s Hospital visiting was restricted due to the level of flu-like illness in the area and doctors said it was one of the busiest winters they had seen. Across the country by the end of last month more than 330 people had died of flu during the seasonal outbreak. Hospital trusts said they offered the seasonal flu vaccination to every staff member but cannot force clinical personnel to be inoculated.
Director of nursing at NBT Marie-Noelle Orzel said : “We do as much as we can to encourage staff to have the jab but it is not as easy as it might seem.” Simon Wood, director of facilities at the north Bristol hospitals, said take-up of the vaccine was “not good enough”. He said it had worked better last year because the Government had focused on the severity of the outbreak.
Harry Hayer, NBT director of organisation, people and performance, said: “Clinical staff have tended to be reluctant right across the NHS. “It feels as though because so many people got the flu and because it had been so bad and had some national coverage that some people towards the end of January started booking appointments that they had not booked before.
“A spokeswoman for UHBristol said: “We recognise the importance of vaccinating staff against seasonal flu and, as such, a trust-wide internal communications programme began in September 2010.” Julie Hendry, spokeswoman for NHS Bristol, which commissions health care in the city, said: “The primary care trust has been working with acute trusts to ensure as many frontline staff were getting vaccinated against the flu to protect themselves, to protect patients and also to help their staffing levels.”
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