University of East Anglia expert urges care home staff to take up the flu vaccine
Vaccinations remain low and far from the World Health Organisation target
The £1.4 million ‘FluCare’ project aims to increase the number of care home staff that take up the flu vaccine.
The project’s team, based at the UEA, say that better uptake across all care home workers would help slow the spread of the virus among residents and reduce the impact of sick leave among care workers.
Dr Amrish Patel is leading the project, and he says that the rate of care home staff vaccination is very low for flu.
According to the project’s data, only around 30% of care home staff take up the flu vaccine. The World Health Organisation recommends that 75% is vaccinated.
Dr Amrish said: “This is really problematic because care homes house some very vulnerable people, and for them catching the flu can have quite serious consequences.”
Dr Amrish, from the University of East Anglia’s School of Economics, explains that another benefit of vaccinated care home staff is the sustainability of the care sector as a whole.
He said: “There's quite a staffing crisis going on in the social care sector. So, where there’s not enough staff to provide regular adequate care, having staff being off with the flu for a couple of days is quite problematic.”
The project’s team hopes that their work will identify and overcome the barriers to flu vaccination which in turn will reduce illness in care home residents and staff.
Dr Amrish says that one of these barriers is that staff have to go get vaccinated in their own time.
He said: “Often, care home staff works awkward shift patterns, which makes it difficult to then get themselves to a GP surgery or a pharmacy to get vaccinated.”
One of the main measures of the FluCare service is to offer a free vaccination clinic within care homes so that it is easily accessible for staff to get vaccinated.
The FluCare trial is now looking for care homes across England to take part and see which measures are most effective.
Dr Amrish appealed to care home managers to take part in the trial.
He said: “If you are trying to find ways to get your staff vaccinated, please do consider taking part in the FluCare trial. We're still actively looking for care homes to take part, and you'll be offered free and regular vaccination clinics.”
You can get in touch through the FluCare project website or their email address: flu.care@uea.ac.uk