Major infection warning as record number of NHS staff reject flu vaccine – uptake falls from nearly 80 to 37% in four years

Hospitals were crippled by flu outbreaks this winter after record numbers of frontline NHS workers shunned the jab, the Mail can reveal.

Fewer than four in ten staff (37 per cent) received the vaccine, with rates plummeting to less than one in ten (8.8 per cent) in some areas.

Patient groups described the level of uptake as ‘shocking’ and accused refuseniks of negligently fuelling sickness and putting vulnerable people at increased risk of death.

The all-time low came as overwhelming demand for care forced over a dozen trusts to declare ‘critical incidents’ and Britain’s top doctor warned of ‘skyrocketing’ cases of flu.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the then national medical director of NHS England, urged patients to get the vaccine saying it could protect them and others from the virus.

Speaking last December, he said: ‘The flu vaccine is our best defence against winter viruses, and it also helps to reduce pressure on hospitals.’

But new figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats and shared exclusively with the Mail show most NHS staff failed to follow their employer’s own advice.

The proportion of healthcare workers, such as doctors and nurses, receiving a flu vaccine over winter fell from 64 per cent in 2016/17, when data was first collected, to just 37 per cent this year.

That is a record low and a fall of 26.7 percentage points. There has been a marked fall in vaccine uptake from the peak of 2020/21 where it hit 76 per cent.

Previous plans to make the vaccine compulsory were dropped amid a backlash from critics, who claimed the medical intervention should be down to personal choice.

But Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, which campaigns for elderly patients, said: ‘The NHS should make having the flu jab a condition of employment for frontline staff unless an individual has medical grounds for exemption.

‘The shockingly low rates of uptake show a certain arrogance – a total disregard for patient safety – and puts vulnerable people at increased risk of death.

‘Most NHS staff who catch flu will probably be OK but the people they are caring for may not survive if they pass it to them. It’s personal negligence.

‘Hospitals will have fared better over winter if more staff had bothered to get a flu vaccine, which we know is effective.’

The levels of flu vaccine uptake varied hugely between NHS Trusts, despite it being offered to frontline NHS staff for free nationwide.

The lowest uptake in the country was at Camden and Islington NHS Trust, where just 8.8 per cent of all healthcare workers had received a jab.

This was followed by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust on 9.5 per cent and then Central and North West London Trust on 15.5 per cent.

In total, 62 of the 184 NHS Trusts which had reported data for this winter saw less than a third of their staff take-up the flu vaccine, according to research by the House of Commons Library for the Liberal Democrats.

There have been some drastic falls in some NHS Trusts in the number of staff taking up the vaccine in recent years.

In Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, there was a fall of 60.5 percentage points in the proportion of staff who received the flu vaccine this winter compared with 2016/17, with just 15.7 per cent of staff now vaccinated.

At Lewisham and Greenwich there was a 59.5 percentage point fall and at Birmingham Women and Children’s Hospital it was 59.2 percentage points.

Since 2016/17 the number of healthcare workers delivering direct patient care has grown by more than 350,000 to almost 950,000, a jump of 45 per cent.

But despite this rise in headcount, the number of staff taking up the flu vaccine fell by 76,000 (15.3 per cent) over the same period, from 496,000 to 420,000.

Flu patients occupied hospital beds for a record number of days this winter – over 315,000 compared with around 174,000 in 2023/24 and 211,000 in 2022/23.

This contributed to bed occupancy rates hitting 96 per cent at points this year, while a ‘safe’ rate is considered to be 85 per cent.

Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat’s health and social care spokesperson, said: ‘Many A&Es resembled a war-zone at times during the winter.

‘People were waiting in intolerable pain, treated in corridors and dying in glorified cupboards.

‘The system is broken from top to bottom, with hospitals unable to move people into the community because of a lack of care provision, leading to deadly backlogs in our hospitals.

‘The surge in those staying in hospital because they had flu, leading to fewer beds for those coming into A&E was a major problem contributing to these awful scenes.

‘That’s why it is absolutely vital that the Government boosts vaccine uptake through a coordinated awareness campaign across the health service, ensuring that staff are properly supported as they continue to do life-saving work for our NHS.’

An NHS England spokesperson said: ‘We strongly urge all eligible frontline health and social care workers and other at-risk groups to come forward for vaccination as soon as the programme starts in Autumn.

‘The NHS continues to make flu vaccination for frontline staff as accessible as possible backed by an enhanced campaign to encourage staff to protect themselves and their patients.

‘Flu hospitalises thousands of people every winter, putting immense pressure on our health service at its busiest time.

‘Having our dedicated staff protected and healthy is crucial to their health and wellbeing, to meet these demands and provide the care patients need.

‘Our upcoming Urgent and Emergency Care plan will include targeted initiatives to boost vaccine uptake, with a focus on healthcare workers, those most vulnerable and children, recognising that vaccination remains our strongest defence against flu.’