TRAINING
Dean Royles, director of the NHS Employers organisation, discusses the upcoming staff-facing anti-fl u campaign. In
the middle of September the NHS Employers organisation will roll out
the UK’s fi rst ever national staff-facing sea- sonal fl u vaccination campaign. It is lead- ing this campaign on behalf of the Social Partnership Forum, with support from unions and the Department of Health, en- couraging employees to ‘spread the word, not the fl u’ and highlighting the impor- tance of vaccinations.
Behind the infectious message is a serious need to overturn what has traditionally been a poor uptake in staff vaccinations. On average only about a quarter of front- line staff received the fl u jab two winters ago and uptake was even lower among nursing staff. There are strong indications that nursing staff uptake had improved to around 30% last winter. These nursing staff are an especially important group for our campaign to engage with, because they have considerable contact with patients and the greatest opportunity to inspire pa- tients to be vaccinated too.
A range of eye-catching communications will ask chief executives, HR directors and clinical leaders to address this concerning lack of uptake, which is detrimental to pa- tient care, the supply of staff and fi nances. It is a ticking time bomb that until now has suffered from the symptoms of a lack of co-ordinated actions. But within the NHS there is passion and willingness to act, which the campaign recognises and aims to build upon.
The campaign will ask NHS staff and or- ganisations to embrace the materials that this fl u campaign will deliver to all of them over the coming months. These will be pro- vided free of charge and include toolkits, myth-busters, posters, media packs and a range of social media tools that will help reach out to staff who are working in the community.
For this campaign to be fully effective, it must be embraced at all levels, supported by effective occupational health profession- als. It is designed to maximise staff engage-
ment, partnership working and ease of use.
While frontline staff are the primary target for vaccinations, no group should be ex- cluded – although it is a local decision as to which groups are a priority. For example, in the past the ambulance service achieved a good level of vaccinations among its frontline staff, only to fi nd that fl u instead spread widely among its call centre staff.
Patient care is always the prime concern of executives in healthcare. Between 12 September 2010 and 4 May 2011, a total of 602 confi rmed fatal infl uenza cases from across the UK were reported to the Health Protection Agency (HPA). The HPA added that these fatal cases did not represent all infl uenza-related deaths. NHS staff work with many groups that can fi nd fl u fatal, including the old, the very young and those with suppressed immune systems. Unborn babies are also vulnerable to fl u and mid- wives can help to promote the importance of vaccination for pregnant women. We all recognise that poor staff vaccination rates are not compatible with excellent patient care, and this campaign will help provide the support to make it happen.
The business case is also compelling. The Boorman Review said that £555m could be saved if current staff absence rates were reduced by a third through improvements to health and wellbeing. While that fi gure includes much more than just the conse- quences of fl u, it is equally true that fl u has other knock-on effects that harm fi nances, including reduced effi ciency, process and diligence as well as unplanned-for increas- es in the use of agency staff cover.
Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Pre- vention (QIPP) goals are embedded in this campaign and show how well it fi ts with the needs of the NHS. Quality is higher and safety is improved when provided by healthy staff. This campaign provides great latitude for innovation, being fl exible and supportive. Productivity is far greater when sickness is low because morale and attend- ance are improved. And prevention is ab-
solutely the byword of this campaign, both in the short term and through a cultural change towards greater achievement of high vaccination uptake in future.
As an executive what should you do when embedding this campaign in your organisa- tion? Here are some key things to consider:
• Ensure that this campaign and your wider health and well-being initiatives are backed with strong leadership and visible support at board level.
• Ensure that key staff, especially occupa- tional health professionals, HR directors and team leaders, have the material they need and put effective processes in place.
• Be passionate and clear about how staff fl u vaccinations are essential to patient care and that this is compellingly sup- ported by the best available evidence.
• Be aware that health unions are highly supportive of this campaign, that we are working with them, and that they too will be encouraging staff to get vaccinated.
• You have the confi dence of knowing that the campaign can really work because it builds on the lessons and methods used in areas like the North West SHA, which last year achieved double the av- erage national staff vaccination uptake.
• Most important of all, be as creative as you need to be to get the attention and support of your workforce.
As more people get vaccinated the ‘herd immunity’ to fl u grows and grows. Some- thing similar happens with partnerships in the NHS, where the benefi ts grow ex- ponentially when we all participate and share our resources and experience. We are excited about the staff fl u vaccina- tion campaign and believe it will have a real impact this year. We thank you all for your interest in mak- ing it a success.
Visit
www.nhsemployers.org/fl u Dean Royles
FOR MORE INFORMATION national health executive Jul/Aug 11 | 55
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