MINISTER DEMANDS ALL NHS STAFF GET FLU JABS

Britain’s in a flu crisis — but as it’s revealed four in ten Health Service workers HAVEN’T been vaccinated...

FOUR in ten NHS staff have not had flu jabs despite one of the worst outbreaks in years. Hospital admissions have surged by a third this week and rates are eight times higher than this time last year.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the figures showed the need for all medics to be protected against the virus. ‘It is wrong for any frontline NHS staff not to be vaccinated against flu without a good medical reason,’ he said last night.

‘This is an essential measure to ensure patients and staff are protected throughout the winter period.

I am determined to reach universal uptake for NHS workers next year.’

Senior sources said Mr Hancock was ‘actively considering’ compulsory jabs ‘sooner rather than later’.

The latest official data shows that just 62 per cent of NHS staff have had their flu jab, falling to just 25 per cent at one major health trust.

Uptake is only fractionally higher

than last year despite a major campaign reminding health workers of their ‘duty’ to get vaccinated.

Whitehall officials will make a decision on mandatory vaccinations next year – after receiving the final set of uptake figures for 2019/20. If they decide to press ahead, they would need legal advice on how to implement the policy without breeching human rights laws.

One option would be to change contracts meaning they could be sacked if they did not have their jab – without good reason. This is already the case in many hospitals in the United States.

Cambridge University Hospitals considered making the vaccines compulsory in 2011 but abandoned the idea after solicitors warned that this might breech human rights legislation.

Yesterday’s figures from Public Health England show that only 25 per cent of staff at the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust had been vaccinated as of the end of November. Others with low uptake included the London Ambulance

Service at 41 per cent and Southend University Hospital at 42 per cent.

Three months ago Mr Hancock said he was looking at compulsory vaccines for children, including MMR, although he has since rowed back.

The NHS’s former medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh, called for a ‘serious debate’ over mandatory flu jabs in January 2018, when hospitals were under severe strain.

The number of patients going to hospital with flu has increased by 34 per cent in a week, up from 5.13 per 100,000 to 6.85 per 100,000 on December 15.

A further 174 patients were admitted to intensive care units – four times as many as the same week last winter.

Separate figures from the Royal College of GPs show that 9,646 patients went to a doctor with flu-like illness last week, a rise of 22 per cent on the previous week. Professor Martin Marshall, who is chairman of the Royal College, said: ‘We encourage anyone in an at-risk group – for example, the elderly, patients with long-term conditions and pregnant women – to visit their GP or local pharmacist to get vaccinated. We urge parents of young children to arrange for their children to get their nasal vaccination.’

Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, head of flu at Public Health England, said: ‘Flu season has now started and so it’s really important that people get their flu vaccine as soon as possible to ensure they are protected against this potentially very serious illness. Initial evidence suggests the vaccine is a good match for the main strain of flu that is circulating.’

Provisional tests show that one of the main strains this winter is influenza A, H3N2, including one type which originated in Kansas. The NHS offers the flu jab for free for all health service staff as well as the over 65s, pregnant women, children aged two to 11 and anyone with long-term health conditions. Mr Hancock will need to examine whether vaccines should be mandatory for all NHS staff or only frontline workers, such as doctors, nurses or ambulance staff. He will also have to consider exemptions for religious, health or other reasons.

One reason for low uptake among NHS staff is that they are just too busy at work.