Flu and covid: Could NHS do more to ensure doctors get vaccinated this winter?
With vaccination rates against respiratory illnesses continuing to decline among healthcare staff, Emma Wilkinson examines what’s behind the trend and efforts to tackle it Flu hit early this year, and NHS hospitals are being inundated with respiratory illness.1 Beds are full, and surveillance across primary and secondary care suggests that the rate is increasing steeply. Yet when winter respiratory viruses are circulating it is not just the patients who are affected. Data for the week to 15 December showed that 54 165 staff were off sick, around 4476 more than in the same week in 2023.2 The numbers exemplify why the NHS made an operational decision to offer influenza and covid vaccines to frontline workers (involved in direct care). But there has been a noticeable decline in vaccine uptake among staff in recent years. In England in 2023-24 less than half (42.8%) of staff in NHS trusts involved in direct care of patients had had a flu vaccine—a seven percentage point drop from the previ
