Dr Ruth Lund, GP Partner at Bewick Crescent Surgery, talks to the Newton News about this year’s flu campaign.
As last year, this flu season the Surgery will be giving two different types of flu vaccination. NHS England have authorised the use of an adjuvanted trivalent flu vaccination called Fluad for anyone aged over 65. ‘Adjuvanted’ means that the vaccination has an added ingredient (squalene) which helps the vaccination get into the immune system faster. As we age our immune system becomes less efficient so it is felt that this vaccine offers better protection for this group of patients. We are running a dedicated walk-in clinic for this group of patients on Saturday 21 September 2019 between 8.00am and 12noon.
Patients under 65 will be given a quadrivalent vaccine. This vaccination offers the same protection as Fluad, it just isn’t adjuvanted. However, this year Public Health have asked manufacturers to add another flu strain (A/Kansas/14/2017) to this vaccination. This means that there will be a delay for these deliveries and whilst we had planned our first Saturday walk-in clinic for September, we will not now be able to run this until Saturday 12 October 2019. Over 65s are also welcome at this clinic.
Both vaccines do the same job and offer the same protection against flu, but one just works faster. Although the over 65 flu programme is a universal programme (ie anyone can have it) people under 65 only qualify for an NHS vaccination if they have a chronic condition such as asthma, COPD, diabetes, are pregnant, a carer or have a BMI over 40. We also offer vaccinations to health care workers. If you are unsure whether you can have the vaccine for free please ask any of our staff.
NHS England have very strict rules about which vaccines surgeries are allowed to give to which patients so, for example, we are not allowed to give a Fluad vaccine to somone under 65, even though we do get that stock earlier. For anyone who is concerned about this remember that flu does not generally circulate until well into the winter (the ‘flu season’ officially starts in December) so waiting until October for your flu vaccination does not put you at increased risk.
For our Heighington patients we will be arranging walk-in clinics at the branch surgery in October. Any patients from Heighington who would like to have their vaccination earlier are invited to come along to one of our Saturday clinics at Bewick Crescent.
Remember flu can be a debilitating and even life-threatening infection so please do come and get your vaccination.
