Large infection warning as a record number of NHS staff weighs flu vaccine – admission falls from almost 80 to 37% in four years

Hospitals were paralyzed by flu outbreaks this winter after record numbers Frontlinie NHS employees can reveal the JAB, the mail.

Less than four in ten employees (37 percent) received the vaccine, with rates that fell to less than one in ten (8.8 percent) in some areas.

Patient groups described the level of admission as ‘shocking’ and accused refusals of the negligent assumption of illness and bringing vulnerable people with an increased risk of death.

The low of all time came as an overwhelming demand for care that was forced more than a dozen trusts to explain ‘critical incidents’ and warned the top doctor of Great Britain of ‘shooting’ cases of flu.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the then national medical director of NHS England, urged patients to get the vaccine that it could protect them against the virus.

He said last December: “The flu vaccine is our best defense against winter viruses, and it also helps to reduce the pressure on hospitals.”

But new figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats and exclusively shared with the Mail Show that most NHS employees do not follow their own advice from their employer.

The share of healthcare employees, such as doctors and nurses, who received a flu vaccine during the winter, fell from 64 percent in 2016/17, when the data was collected for the first time, to only 37 percent this year.

That is a record low and a decrease of 26.7 percentage points. There has been a clear decrease in the recording of vaccine from the peak of 2020/21, where it hit 76 percent.

Previous plans to make the vaccine mandatory were dropped in the midst of a recoil by critics, which claimed that the medical intervention was dealing with personal choice.

But Dennis, director of Silver Voices, who campaigns for older patients, said: “The NHS should make the flu a state of employment for frontlining personnel, unless a person has medical reasons for exemption.

‘The shockingly low recording rates show a certain arrogance – a total contempt for patient safety – and brings vulnerable people with an increased risk of death.

‘Most NHS employees who catch the flu will probably be fine, but the people they take care of cannot survive if they pass it on to them. It is personal negligence.

“Hospitals will have done better in the winter if more staff had taken the trouble to get a flu vaccine that we know is effective.”

The levels of flu vaccine recording varied enormously between NHS Trusts, even though it is offered to front line NHS employees for the front line for free nationally.

The lowest admission to the country was at Camden and Islington NHS Trust, where only 8.8 percent of all health workers had received a shot.

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices

This was followed by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust at 9.5 percent and then Central and North West London Trust at 15.5 percent.

In total, 62 of the 184 NHS trusts that had reported data for this winter saw less than a third of their staff, according to research by the Library Library for the Liberal Democrats.

There have been some drastic falls in some NHS trusts in the number of employees who take up the vaccine in recent years.

In Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust there was a decrease of 60.5 percentage points in the proportion of personnel that received the flu vaccine this winter compared to 2016/17, with only 15.7 percent of the staff now vaccinated.

In Lewisham and Greenwich there was a decrease of 59.5 percentage points and in Birmingham Women and Children’s Hospital it was 59.2 percentage points.

Since 2016/17, the number of health workers that provide direct patient care has grown by more than 350,000 to nearly 950,000, a jump of 45 percent.

But despite this increase in the workforce, the number of staff that the flu vaccine seized fell by 76,000 (15.3 percent) in the same period, from 496,000 to 420,000.

Flu patients occupy this winter for a record number of days – more than 315,000 compared to approximately 174,000 in 2023/24 and 211,000 in 2022/23.

Helen Morgan, spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat’s Health and Social Care

This has contributed to the occupancy rate of the bed that this year achieved 96 percent on points, while a ‘safe’ rate is considered 85 percent.

Helen Morgan, spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat’s Health and Social Care, said: ‘Many A & ES sometimes looked like a war zone in the winter.

‘People waited in unbearable pain, treated in corridors and die in glorified cupboards.

‘The system is broken from top to bottom, where hospitals are unable to move people to the community due to a lack of care provision, which leads to deadly backlogs in our hospitals.

‘The increase in people staying in the hospital because they had flu, which led to fewer beds for those who came to A&E was a major problem that contributed to these terrible scenes.

“That is why it is absolutely of vital importance that the government increases the absorption of vaccine through a coordinated awareness campaign in health care, so that staff are well supported because they continue to do life -saving work for our NHS.”

A spokesperson for NHS England said: ‘We strongly penetrate all eligible front line health and social care workers and other risk groups to come to joints for vaccination as soon as the program starts in the fall.

‘The NHS continues to make flu vaccination for frontlining personnel that is as accessible as possible, supported by an improved campaign to encourage staff to protect themselves and their patients.

The low of all time came as an overwhelming demand for care that was forced more than a dozen trusts to explain ‘critical incidents’ and warned the top doctor of Great Britain of ‘shooting’ cases of flu

Hospitals were paralyzed by flu outbreaks this winter after the records of front line NHS employees shuns the Jab

‘Flu in the hospital thousands of people every winter and exerts enormous pressure on our health service at the busiest time.

‘Being protected and healthy committed staff is crucial for their health and well -being, to meet these requirements and to offer the care patients needed.

“Our upcoming urgent and emergency care plan will include targeted initiatives to stimulate the absorption of vaccine, with a focus on health workers, who are the most vulnerable and children, and acknowledge that vaccination remains our strongest defense against flu.”