Nurses told: Get f lu jab or be moved off high-risk wards
‘It helps to reduce pressure on NHS’
DOCTORS and nurses who fail to have the flu jab this winter could be moved off maternity and intensive care units to protect patients, NHS chiefs warn.
Hospitals and primary care providers have been told by NHS Improvement and NHS England they want uptake as close to 100 per cent as possible.
Those who refuse will be asked to explain why and face being ‘redeployed’ away from patients who are at high risk of becoming seriously ill if they catch flu.
This could mean banning them from working in areas with vulnerable people such as pregnant women, children, the elderly and patients in intensive care.
The warning follows the worst flu season in a decade which combined with extreme weather and high levels of norovirus to heap huge pressure on NHS services.
Professor Jane Cummings, chief nursing officer at NHS England, said: ‘ By getting vaccinated against flu, health care workers can protect themselves, their families, colleagues and patients, making sure we have a healthy workforce and helping to reduce the pressure on services over winter.’
A third of the increase in emergency admissions over winter were flu-related while a number of staff were struck down by the virus.
Despite many hospitals offering incentives such as free coffee vouchers, the number of frontline workers getting the jab in England last winter was only 68.7 per cent. Some trusts managed to achieve a 90 per cent take-up rate using social media and targeting different shift patterns to make it easier for employees to get it done.
NHS chiefs said that moving staff away from vulnerable patients will be at each trust’s discretion.
Social care workers will receive the vaccine free of charge and GPs, dental and optometry practices and community pharmacists are expected to offer it to frontline staff. Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘We absolutely support this drive to encourage NHS staff to have their flu jab and we would urge all members of the primary care team, including those who work in residential and care homes, to be vaccinated early in the season, for their own health, as well as their patients.’
There have previously been calls to make the flu jab compulsory for NHS staff but unions argue it is a person’s right to decide.
Some staff object to it on the grounds it may make them unwell, while others have said it is too much trouble to get the vaccine.
Sara Gorton, head of health for public sector union Unison, said: ‘While it makes sense for staff to be encouraged to get the flu jab, no-one should feel that they have no option but to have it.’
‘But flu is not the only illness that staff working in health and care settings are exposed to. Having a clean environment, maintaining hand hygiene and following guidance when handling infectious materials all play a part in reducing risks,’ she added.