Sherwood Forest Hospitals has been labelled one of the bests Trusts in the East Midlands region for its success at vaccinating employees against flu

Over 63 per cent of front line staff agreed to be vaccinated against this highly contagious infection, surpassing the national average of 50.4 per cent.

Health professionals and other NHS staff who have direct contact with patients are encouraged to get vaccinated against flu each winter. It helps to protect vulnerable patients from the risk of catching flu and decreases the number of hospital staff off work through sickness.

Rebecca Garner, Senior Occupational Health Nurse and lead for the flu vaccination campaign, said the results were a huge success: “Flu is much more severe than a cold. Anyone can catch it and for some people it can be a particularly debilitating and dangerous illness. A comprehensive staff flu vaccination campaign is essential for the Trust in order to stop the risk of flu spreading.”

Over 40 nurses from all areas of the Trust volunteered their time to be trained in administering the vaccination, which led to a strong taskforce proactively vaccinating colleagues within clinical areas and in numerous ‘grab a jab’ clinics over the three hospital sites in Sutton in Ashfield, Mansfield and Newark.

Rebecca added: “The vaccination is not compulsory so it was important for us to get a strong message across to our staff, and the results this year show our campaign was a great success

“Having this high proportion of our staff vaccinated has certainly helped to limit transmission of the virus during flu season.”