Lincoln<\/a> Council and represents the Park ward, questioned the target and how it was measured.<\/p>\nAt a meeting on Wednesday, November 19, she said: \u201cIs it right that the target is set as a target of 45% of staff having received that flu vaccine. Do you count how many have had the vaccine?\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Clapton, head of immunisation and screening at the NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board, said: \u201cThe flu vaccine amongst staff has been declining over the last couple of years and that\u2019s why the target is where it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the national team asked for was a 5% increase from 2024\/25 and that was done on a provider basis, so every provider was expected to achieve that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do keep track of where we are with staff vaccines. I\u2019m really pleased to say that, for healthcare workers as a whole, Lincolnshire has got the best uptake across the Midlands system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s gone really well and one of the things we achieved was that we maintained our system\u2019s seasonal vaccination programme right through the summer so we started talking about it really early.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Coun Christopher Reeve (Reform UK), who represents the Scotter Rural division, said it should be up to staff whether or not they get vaccinated and should not be compulsory.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThere was a situation during Covid where staff were disciplined, and I believe even fired, for not taking up the vaccines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a very personal choice to have a vaccine. You\u2019re injecting something into somebody\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have concerns that if staff don\u2019t want to take up the vaccine – they\u2019re made to declare that they\u2019re not having the vaccine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it shouldn\u2019t even be on somebody\u2019s personal records, whether they have or haven\u2019t taken up the vaccine because that could then be held against them at some point if they\u2019ve chosen for whatever reason not to have the vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Coun Karen Lee (Labour), who represents the Ermine and Cathedral division, said she believed that frontline hospital staff should get vaccinated to keep patients safe.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI do understand the necessity of that. Anybody who joins the NHS knows that when they take that job that there is a requirement to have vaccinations and it\u2019s not just Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went on to say that while hospital staff are encouraged to have lots of different injections, she believed it\u2019s for a \u201cvery good reason\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cFor anyone whose relative goes into hospital, you want to have the confidence that your relative isn\u2019t going to catch Covid or other germs when they go in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coun Robert Kendrick (Conservative), who represents the Metheringham Rural division, said he used to work with patients and has always felt it was important for him to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cFor 30 years I used to have my jab. Although I wasn\u2019t a clinician, I did work with patients, so I thought it was important I protected myself and the patients I came into contact with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably say it every year. I\u2019m quite amazed that less than half of our hospital staff actually take that up because I think it\u2019s such an important thing to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Clapton said: \u201cIt\u2019s a personal decision. Staff vaccines are not compulsory at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do know the overall number, but that isn\u2019t monitored on an individual basis, so I can\u2019t see if anyone working as a frontline healthcare worker has actually had the vaccine or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe monitor it through a staff record. We know the total number of staff and we know the total number of people vaccinated. We don\u2019t know the names of people who are not vaccinated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do this year is really provide education around the benefits of being vaccinated and create an atmosphere where staff have time and feel educated enough to decide themselves if they want the vaccine.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, from a protecting patients perspective and protecting staff, I am strongly in favour of staff being vaccinated but it\u2019s not compulsory.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Councillors have questioned why a Lincolnshire hospital trust only has a target for 45% of its frontline staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[84404,105,4348,35985,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-586889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-all-lincolnshire-news","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-lincs-homepage","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115593688193795838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}