The government says even “moderate” uptake of the vaccine could reduce the number of those infected by flu by 40 per cent and prevent about 2,000 deaths a year and 11,000 hospital admissions. Ministers have yet to decide how the programme will be delivered – through school nurses or GPs.

Chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies said: “There are significant challenges to delivering a programme that requires up to nine million children to be vaccinated during a six week period and we will look at the recommendations in detail to decide how best to develop and deliver the programme.”

Source: Englemed Newsroom

Employers and trade unions have been pressing the point this year that vaccination is about protecting the safety of patients. The most successful hospitals include Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies said the numbers were “still too low”.

She said: “NHS staff keep our health service running and it is vital they continue to protect themselves, their patients and their families over the coming months.”

But Dean Royles, director of NHS Employers, said: “This is a fantastic increase in the number of staff vaccinated compared to last year. We can now be confident that many more will be vaccinated this year. This is excellent news for patients.

“Our coordinated vaccination campaign has been embraced throughout NHS England and there have been over 10,000 hits from health trusts on our Flu Fighters web site. One of the biggest differences this year is a much greater increase in the use of social media to communicate the need for staff vaccinations.”

* Five hospitals will be providing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation this winter – providing emergency care for patients critically ill with flu, it was announced.

There will be two in London and hospitals at Papworth, Cambridgeshire, in Leicester and in Manchester.

 Source: Englemed Newsroom

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said it is now seeking further evidence on the issue. It has received details of a study from the Health Protection Agency stating that child vaccination would be cost effective – to prevent disease spread. It says it wants an assessments of how GPs and schools would manage the programme – which would have to be undertaken annually.

Director of immunisation Professor David Salisbury said: “Extending the vaccination programme to all healthy children under 17 would be a huge undertaking, increasing the number of people who get the vaccine, so it is important that we get this decision absolutely right.

“A key consideration will be the availability, as the JCVI concluded, of a flu vaccine, given as nose drops, that would be more effective in protecting children against flu. But we need to understand from vaccine manufacturers how and when they would be able to produce the vaccine in the quantities we need.”

Source: Englemed Newsroom

Signatories include Janet Davies, of the Royal College of Nursing, Gail Adams, Unison’s head of nursing and Cathy Warwick, president of the Royal College of Midwives. The statement says: “It’s vital that staff protect themselves, their families and those in their care. We want having the vaccine to become routine and to be seen to be as important and fundamental as good hand hygiene in protecting the most vulnerable in our care. This simple act could save lives, including health workers and their families.”

Dean Royles, director of NHS Employers, said thousands of staff had already been vaccinated. He said: “The momentum is still strong and we need to build on this because there is an urgent need to get more staff vaccinated before the flu season truly gets underway. We hope many more staff will request their jab now to build their immunity.”

Source: Englemed Newsroom

Last year women proved reluctant to have the vaccine, fearing it could affect their children. As many as a third of the women admitted to hospital with the flu were pregnant.

Sue Sherlock, deputy head of midwifery at the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I fully understand concerns about the safety of the flu jab but not only is it safe for pregnant women to have it, but it offers vital protection.

“Every year the flu vaccine is created in the same way and it does not contain any live virus, so it cannot cause flu.”

And NHS Central Lancashire immunisation co-ordinator Fiona Print said: “In pregnancy, the immune system is naturally suppressed, which raises the risk of complications such as pneumonia, which can lead to premature labour or miscarriage.”

She said: “People with asthma should be invited to their GP practice from October onwards to receive the vaccine but if this has not happened, they are advised to contact their GP practice to book an appointment.

“At Asthma UK, 90 per cent of people with asthma tell us that their asthma is triggered by colds and flu.

“The flu vaccination is free to people who are most susceptible, including those with asthma.”

The British government has been urging people in high risk groups, including pregnant women, to get the vaccination. Last year fewer than half of these underwent vaccination.

But it has been criticised for not running a nationwide advertising campaign.

Britain has four ECMO centres for adults and some 69 swine flu patients were transferred to them during the outbreak in the winter of 2009 to 2010. ECMO is at least twice as expensive as conventional ventilation.

The research, conducted by surgeon Moronke Noah, of Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, showed that 22 of these patients died. This compared with about 50 per cent of similar patients who did not get the treatment.

The findings are being reported to the conference of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine in Berlin, Germany, and are also reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers sought to match patients who received ECMO carefully with other patients with similar circumstances.

The researchers write: “The role of ECMO in acute respiratory distress syndrome is debated. Several reports and our study demonstrate that ECMO can be undertaken without the prohibitive morbidity and adverse events seen in the 1970s.”

Writing in the journal Dr William Checkley, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, says the research “revitalises” interest in the use of ECMO for treating critical lung disease.

He writes: “While underlying risk factors may be different, severe respiratory failure from H1N1 infection presents a clinical challenge similar to that involving acute respiratory distress syndrome from other causes. ”

JAMA.2011;306(15)doi:10.1001/jama.2011.1471

Dean Royles, director of the NHS Employers organisation, said: “Flu has a hugely negative impact on the NHS and is fatal in too many cases. By working together we can achieve enough vaccinations to dramatically reduce the current high risk of flu spreading within the NHS. Organisations throughout England are strongly backing this campaign and we believe staff will come out equally strongly in support, especially given the excellent help and backing being provided by their unions. This year’s vaccine is the best possible formula to protect people against seasonal flu and H1N1.”

Unison is fully behind the campaign, as is the Royal College of Midwives. Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the RCM, said: “We encourage midwives and women to have the vaccine to help stop the spread of the illness in hospital and at home. It is often difficult for midwives and other healthcare staff to get to the places where employers are administering the vaccine. We are pleased to see that NHS Employers is making steps to address this and make it easier.”

Meanwhile, Chief Medical Officer Dame Professor Sally Davies said urged vulnerable people to get their vaccine. “People often don’t think about the flu vaccine until the virus is circulating – but by then it could be too late,” she said. “It takes five to ten days for the vaccine to take effect so it is important to get the flu jab before flu is about. I’d urge everyone eligible for the flu vaccine, particularly those in the clinical at risk groups, to get vaccinated as soon as they are able. Protect yourself early to minimise the risk of getting flu.” She added: “It’s selfish for healthcare workers, if they don’t protect their patients from them infecting them [with flu]; if they don’t make sure they are fit to go to work; to look after their families and not take it home too.”

Last year more than 600 people died from flu and the majority were in clinical at risk groups.

The Department of Health said the “majority” of nurses working with the most critically ill patients – and midwives working with pregnant women – were vulnerable to flu. Swine flu has proved especially lethal to pregnant women.

The figures show parents also being reluctant to vaccinate high risk infants. Just one in four of high-risk children under the age of two were protected against the flu.

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies said: “NHS staff face increased pressure over winter, especially if there is a severe flu season.

“They keep the NHS running and it is vital that they protect themselves, their patients and families from the potentially serious effects of flu that they are exposed to over the winter period.”

Senior nurses and midwives backed the campaign.

Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said: “Midwives are strongly advised to encourage all pregnant women to be vaccinated against seasonal flu.

“In addition midwives as key health workers should themselves seriously consider being vaccinated to prevent transmission of influenza to the women for whom they care and also to their own families.”

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Dr Peter Carter said he would seek to help nurses to make “the right decision” about the vaccine.

He said: “Employers should never force staff to be vaccinated. Equally, employers and vaccination services need to work together to ensure that the whole process is as simple and as effective as possible.”

Gail Adams, head of nursing at Unison, said: “We know how hard it is for staff to get away from busy wards, so this year, the vaccine is coming to staff, rather than the other way round. It is vital that Trusts do all they can to make sure that staff have the time to get vaccinated, and that means making an extra effort to cover those on different shifts.”

Dr Maureen Baker, of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We always encourage GPs to have the seasonal flu jab, so as to protect the service at critical times and to protect vulnerable patients. We fully support the CMOs call for healthcare workers to be vaccinated.”