DBH reaches 75% for staff flu vaccinations

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals has vaccinated over 75 per cent of its frontline healthcare workers against the flu virus, becoming the first acute Trust in…

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals has vaccinated over 75 per cent of its frontline healthcare workers against the flu virus, becoming the first acute Trust in the country to do so.

Between 19 September and 27 October 2016, the Trust managed to vaccinate 3,525 of its frontline staff involved in direct patient care.

This achievement demonstrates the Trust’s continued commitment to reducing infections and protecting its staff and patients from flu.  Influenza is a highly infectious virus and vaccinating staff against the illness is vitally important in keeping flu levels down in the hospital, helping to protect vulnerable patients.

The success of this year’s flu campaign is largely attributed to the Trust’s dedicated army of ‘Flu Busters’, peer vaccinators and its Occupational Health and Wellbeing team.  The team have worked extremely hard administering the flu vaccines to the Trust’s doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers on the wards and in patient areas, including carrying out special sessions for weekend workers and night staff.

Richard Parker, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Quality, at the Trust, said: “This is an outstanding achievement and once again shows our determination to keep our patients safe and our staff healthy.  We have a fantastic flu busting team who have been working incredibly hard to vaccinate over 3,000 frontline staff.  This amazing team effort will help us reduce the impact of the flu virus both in our organisation and in the communities we serve.”

Mr Sewa Singh, Medical Director at the Trust, said: “We have seen an impressive response from our medical staff, with 90 per cent of our doctors having their jab, showing the importance they place on getting vaccinated against the flu. We encourage all frontline staff to have their flu jab.”

Flu can cause a range of illnesses from mild to severe, even among healthy people.  People aged 65 and over, pregnant women, anyone with diabetes, chest or heart conditions and others in at-risk groups are advised to have the flu vaccine.

The Trust is asking visitors to help them in their fight against flu and other winter illness by not visiting relatives and friends in hospital if they have flu and cold symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, cough, body aches and fatigue.  Local residents are also asked to look out for the symptoms of norovirus which are nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.