The Royal United Hospital in Bath was a finalist for an award for being one of the most improved Trusts in the country for uptake of the flu vaccine.
The hospital was shortlisted for a ‘Most improved flu fighter campaign’ award by NHS Employers, thanks to a concentrated and creative seasonal Flu vaccination campaign by staff.
The hospital says they are very pleased that just over 70% of their clinical staff have been vaccinated against flu, with 1,868 clinical staff receiving the flu vaccine. Overall 2,543 of those who work at the RUH, including non-clinical staff, had the vaccine.
Staff were urged to have the flu vaccine in order to protect not just themselves, but also their friends, family, colleagues and patients against becoming ill.
Peter Fox, who is Occupational Health Manager at the RUH, said: “This was a tremendous effort. We trained 50 ward and department nursing staff to give the flu vaccine in 30 vaccination centres across the hospital, and we also had bank staff volunteering to do shifts.
“We wanted to make it as easy as possible for staff to be vaccinated, and so it was particularly successful for those staff looking after patients, who found it difficult to leave their work area.
“We started vaccinating in October and in the first 15 hours alone, 350 staff were vaccinated. We ran vaccination clinics on a daily basis and in other central locations across the hospital site, to make it as convenient as possible for staff to get the jab. We also had mobile vaccinators going out to the wards and other patient areas to vaccinate health and social care workers.
“We are very grateful to everyone for all their efforts to ensure our staff and therefore their families and our patients, are being protected against the flu.”
