Fewer than half of NHS staff have flu jab

Fewer than half of NHS workers across Sussex are having a flu jab, according to a report to councillors, putting staffing capacity at risk during the busy winter months.

Health chiefs are now trying to increase vaccination rates as part of the “system-wide” winter plan in Brighton and Hove and beyond.

A report to Brighton and Hove City Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee said that NHS Sussex was aiming for a 5 percentage point increase in vaccination rates among health workers.

Last winter, the report said, about two thirds of the wider Sussex population who qualified for a flu jab had one – pregnant women, children, over-65s, unpaid carers, social workers, frontline health workers and those with long-term health conditions.

But the report that went before the committee last Wednesday (19 November) said that just 42 per cent of staff had the jab last year at University Hospitals Sussex, the trust that runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

The lowest take up among NHS staff in the county was 40 per cent of those working at Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust which runs Mill View Hospital, in Hove.

Workers from Sussex Community Foundation Trust, which offers community care, had the highest take up – at slightly more than half.

Publicity campaigns have focused on encouraging staff to have vaccinations against flu, covid and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Labour councillor Jackie O’Quinn told the committee that it was important that healthcare professionals, particularly hospital workers, did not have as much sickness as the general population.

Councillor O’Quinn said: “There’s obviously huge importance for the senior clinicians during these times when it’s very busy to be there and organise things.

“I wondered what the vaccination rates were for senior clinicians because that would seem to me to be really an important area. Not that everyone else isn’t important. But those directing things need that.”

University Hospitals Sussex chief operating officer Nigel Kee said that the trust was running a campaign. He said: “One of the things we’ve been doing this year is increasing the amount of roving teams.

“Rather than staff having to book a time and clinic to go and have their flu vaccination at a certain time, what we find is that might be fine for some staff.

“But, for others, it’s a lot more convenient to have roving teams going to a ward, a clinic or department and offer a vaccination in the person’s area of work.

“That seems to be well received and one of the things that has improved the vaccination rate this year.”

The current rate is 46 per cent of staff – already higher than last winter – and the programme is continuing.

Mr Kee said that this was about average for NHS trusts regionally and nationally.