The UKHSA Annual Flu Programme webpage is regularly updated with guidance, template invitation letters, the child flu eligibility poster and various other useful resources. An interactive flu immunisation e-learning programme, written by UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and produced by Health Education England’s e-Learning for Healthcare, is available for anyone involved in delivering the flu immunisation programme.

• Reporting: The CEG dashboard will be highlighting uptake of flu across City & Hackney for each of the different cohorts.
• Co-administration: Providers are encouraged to align delivery of the flu vaccination programme with other commissioned vaccination programmes for which the patient may be eligible (for instance shingles, covid or pneumococcal vaccines) where it is clinically acceptable, operationally feasible, and where the patient is content. 
• Eligibility: The programme provides direct protection to those at higher risk of flu associated morbidity and mortality, including older people, pregnant women, and those in clinical risk groups.

The below groups will be eligible for a flu vaccine from 1 September 2023:

●    those aged 65 years and over
●    those aged 6 months to under 65 years in clinical risk groups (as defined by the Green Book, chapter 19 (Influenza))
●    pregnant women
●    all children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2023
●    primary school aged children (from Reception to Year 6)
●    those in long-stay residential care homes [footnote 1]
●    carers in receipt of carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person
●    close contacts of immunocompromised individuals
●    frontline workers in a social care setting without an employer led occupational health scheme including those working for a registered residential care or nursing home, registered domiciliary care providers, voluntary managed hospice providers and those that are employed by those who receive direct payments (personal budgets) or Personal Health budgets, such as Personal Assistants

All frontline health care workers, including both clinical and non-clinical staff who have contact with patients, should be offered a flu vaccine as part of the organisations’ policy for the prevention of the transmission of flu to help protect both staff and those that they care for. 

Social care workers directly working with people clinically vulnerable to flu should also have the flu vaccine provided by their employer. There are circumstances where frontline staff, employed by specific social care providers without access to employer led occupational health schemes (see cohort eligibility above), can access the vaccine through the NHS free of charge.

Eligible school aged children (including those in clinical risk groups) will be offered immunisation by Vaccination UK. However, general practices should continue to invite eligible school aged children in clinical risk groups for flu vaccination to ensure that they can access a vaccine before flu starts to circulate, where school sessions may be scheduled for later in the season or have been missed.

Providers are expected to deliver a 100% offer to eligible groups. Providers should aim to equal or exceed last season’s (2022 to 2023) uptake particularly in clinical risk groups, children aged 2 and 3 years old, and pregnant women (see Appendix 1). Providers should also ensure they have robust plans in place for tackling health inequalities for all underserved groups.

With healthcare workers, one of the quality indicators in the 2023 to 2024 Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) is a goal of vaccinating over 75% of staff, reflecting the importance of vaccinating staff both for their own protection and to reduce transmission to vulnerable patients.