As the summer draws to a close Sunbury Health Centre is preparing to deliver this year’s flu vaccinations for eligible patients. For the Health Centre this is a significant lo-gistical project, with an anticipated 5,000 pa-tients to be vaccinated. This is around a quar-ter of those patients currently registered with the practice.
Seasonal flu continues to be an important na-tional public health priority and evidence sug-gests that the effect of this initiative will re-duce serious illness, hospitalisation and mor-tality at a time when both the NHS and Social Care support systems are likely to be manag-ing the usual winter pressures as well as the possibility of further Covid-19 outbreaks.
There are a wide range of people eligible for the flu vaccine and these include:
• those aged 65 and over
• those aged six months to under 65 years in a clinical risk group
• pregnant women
• those in long-stay residential care homes
• carers
• close contacts to immunocompromised individuals
• 50 to 64 year olds not in clinical risk groups (including those who turn 50 by 31st March 2023)
• all children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2022 (school age children will be vaccinated at school )
The vaccines will be available at Sunbury Health Centre on Saturdays beginning on the 15th October and eligible patients will be con-tacted and invited to book an appointment convenient for them.
Covid-19 vaccinations will be offered to Sun-bury Health Centre patients via North West Surrey Integrated Care Services (NICS) which co-ordinates a Federation of 38 GP practices in North West Surrey. Patients will be con-tacted nearer the time and be able to select a location which is convenient for them.
Sunbury Health Centre Core Patient Partici-pation Group (PPG)