"Flu vaccination programme"

Dear Mar65

Thank you for sharing your comments around this years flu vaccination programme on Care Opinion and apologies for the confusion you have described.

I can advise that this year’s seasonal flu programme is the largest ever undertaken in NHS Lanarkshire and is a new way of working for everyone involved.

NHS Lanarkshire understand that people are anxious about when they will receive their flu vaccination and we would like to apologise for any frustration or concern the phased delivery of appointment letters has caused. We are using the Scottish Immunisation and Recall System (SIRS) to allocate appointments and, since it is a national system, we are limited with the changes we can make to existing processes. As we have been using the SIRS system, a number of issues have become evident. However, these have now been fixed. We have also explored a number of local alternatives to prioritise the most vulnerable of the over 65 age group – for example, people who are housebound and care home residents. We are scheduling this group as quickly as we can and some localities have already finished scheduling appointments for the over 65 age group.

There have been a number of challenges with delivering the programme and we are working to rectify these. As we address these challenges, we are confident that the solutions we have in place will help vaccinate more people as quickly and safely as possible. The programme will take longer than other years to deliver, however our plan is to deliver all vaccinations before the end of November and we are on track to achieve this.

We have received a high number of enquiries from members of the public about this year’s flu campaign, specifically about when they will receive their letters. Unfortunately, we cannot provide details of individual appointments as this is done nationally. However, we will be issuing information in the coming weeks on what to do if people haven’t received their letter.

Due to the large volume of calls, we have increased the number of call handlers on our rebooking line and introducing a dedicated email address. However, we are asking for your patience and support to help manage the number of calls.

I would also like to clarify that NHS Lanarkshire is not running drop-in clinics this year, as we need to manage the number of people at each clinic. Some clinics have been set up at short notice and people notified by text – but everyone still had an appointment. Please do not turn up at a flu clinic without an appointment.

I would like to offer reassurance that there is still ample time to vaccinate everyone who is eligible before the flu season starts later in the year.

For further information, please visit www.nhslanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk/flu for local information.

Kind regards.

Lesley