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Should influenza vaccination be mandatory for healthcare staff?

23 January 2020
Healthcare Policy
02 January 2020
Volume 29 · Issue 2

Abstract

Emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses government concerns about the low uptake of flu vaccination among frontline healthcare staff

I have previously discussed in my columns the ramifications of pandemic influenza and how nurses and other healthcare workers could help alleviate the spread of the flu virus through vaccination (Glasper, 2014; 2017). Why am I reiterating the facts of these previous publications? It appears that, despite previous campaigns and the latest flu plan initiative by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Public Health England (PHE), and NHS England, which is designed to increase flu vaccine uptake among frontline health professionals (Van-Tam et al, 2019), little has changed over the past 6 years.

Although the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018)Code states that nurses have a responsibility to protect their patients, some 40% of frontline healthcare staff in England are not availing themselves of flu vaccination (PHE, 2019a; ITV News, 2019). Flu vaccination for healthcare workers helps to stop the transmission of the flu virus and is fully supported by professional bodies such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) (2020).

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