UK: Staff pose flu risk to patients

[Guest guest]

" Healthcare workers have a moral duty to get the vaccine. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7696013.stm

Staff pose flu risk to patients

By

Health reporter, BBC News

Eligible people are urged to get their free flu jab

Medical staff who do not get their flu jab are putting their patients in

danger, say experts.

Seasonal flu is estimated to kill several thousand people, largely the sick

and elderly, each year in the UK.

Official figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) show fewer than one

in seven NHS staff in England went for their flu jab last winter.

It represents the lowest rate since monitoring began in 2001, with the worst

offenders doctors and nurses.

Healthcare workers have a moral duty to get the vaccine

Professor Steve Field, RCGP chairman

In Scotland the uptake figure was just over one in five - a figure described

as disappointing by officials.

New research published in the PLoS Medicine journal suggests that

vaccinating seven health care workers would, on average, prevent one patient

from getting influenza.

Researchers have also investigated why uptake is so low among health care

workers.

Surveys show many staff do not think they need the vaccine because they are

not sick.

And others are put off because they mistakenly believe the jab will give

them flu or are worried about side effects.

Other staff say they simply " haven't got the time " , or simply cannot be

bothered to get vaccinated. No one would like to infect one of their

patients, but by not having a flu jab there is a risk

Flu expert Professor Oxford

Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General

Practitioners, said: " It's very worrying. People - even doctors - have

forgotten what flu is.

" They have not seen real, serious flu for years and are not getting their

vaccine.

" It is putting patients at risk - not only from catching flu but from staff

being off sick.

" Healthcare workers have a moral duty to get the vaccine. "

He said GPs and NHS Direct had been seeing more people with flu symptoms and

warned there could be a outbreak this Christmas.

Doctors are already being advised to prescribe antiviral drugs for flu in

response to increasing numbers of people falling ill with the virus.

One rule

Professor Oxford, a flu expert at St Bartholemew's and the Royal London

Hospital, said: " All staff at all levels should be vaccinated to set an

example.

" No one would like to infect one of their patients, but by not having a flu

jab there is a risk. "

He said it was technologically possible, using forensic microbiology, to

look at a virus and determine which individual in all likelihood had passed

it on to another.

If this " fingerprinting " of viruses became the norm it might spur staff on

to get their jabs, he said.

Other countries have made it mandatory for healthcare workers to get their

flu jab.

At least four US states have policies requiring influenza immunisation of

workers in nursing homes and hospitals.

But similar policies do not exist in the UK, where healthcare workers who do

not get their jab face no legal consequences. ARE YOU ELIGIBLE?

Over the age of 65

Resident in a long-stay residential care home

Suffer from diabetes, chronic respiratory conditions or serious heart,

kidney or liver disease

Undergoing cancer treatment

Have lower immunity due to HIV or medication, such as steroids

Have had a stroke

Health and social care professionals

Poultry workers

According to the Medical Protection Society, an individual patient would

face considerable problems if he or she decided to sue a healthcare worker

for giving them flu.

This is partly because the vaccine used each year is a " best guess " and does

not cover all strains of the virus.

The HPA said it was working to increase the number of immunised NHS staff.

A spokeswoman said: " We know the importance of vaccinating health care

workers with the flu jab.

" Health care workers are an important group to target for the flu jab - both for

their own health and to protect high risk patients. "