Flu jab for NHS workers helps protect patients (From Banbury Cake)

Flu jab for NHS workers helps protect patients

10:10am Saturday 15th December 2012 in News

HEALTH workers in Oxfordshire are being urged to get winter flu jabs amid warnings that low vaccination rates could lead to vulnerable patients becoming infected.

The Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust (OUH) sent its health bus around sites yesterday to offer the jab to staff who have not signed up.

Almost 6,500 of the 11,000 workforce have been vaccinated, but despite a greater take-up than last year health bosses still want more staff to get the jab. It has told staff that neglecting to protect themselves puts patients at risk.

The flu jab bus visited all four of the OUH’s hospital sites; the John Radcliffe Hospital, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, the Churchill Hospital and the Horton General Hospital in Banbury.

Staff nurse from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Margaret Shoniwa, said: “I decided to have the vaccination as I wanted to make sure I didn’t get flu this year and I also didn’t want to pass it on to my patients.”

Last year 5,610 staff had the jab.

A Trust spokesman last night refused to say whether hospital bosses had a target for the take-up this year.