Influenza: Vaccination

(asked on 13th October 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the uptake of flu vaccination across (a) support staff and (b) other professions working in the NHS.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 20th October 2023

All providers delivering services under the NHS Standard Contract are contractually responsible for ensuring that all eligible frontline staff in contact with service users are vaccinated for flu. NHS England policy is to ensure all frontline patient facing staff working in Trusts are offered a flu vaccination.

NHS England is making best us of established networks to encourage uptake of flu vaccination by frontline health and care workers. This is being achieved using owned communication channels to target National Health Service and care staff and encouraging stakeholders, employers, and Government departments to share messaging, content and case studies with frontline professionals, their members and service users.

NHS England has developed a set of over 85 creative assets for local sites to use for the current seasonal flu campaign, including an FAQ leaflet and core messages, which have been available to order as print copies from Campaign Resource Centre since August 2023 with digital versions available to download throughout the campaign.

NHS England is also sharing regularly updated messaging, as well as highlighting and sharing best practice with its employer networks and reminding them of their responsibility to ensure staff are physically and mentally fit for work.

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