Winter 2024/25
Guidance and news about winter flu, vaccination programmes and useful resources for adult social care providers
Seasonal Vaccination Programme – 27 September 2024 - Letter from DHSC§
The main flu and COVID-19 vaccination campaign will commence on Thursday 3 October 2024. An October start date reflects JCVI advice that the flu vaccine’s effectiveness can wane over time in adults and so a later start date is preferable.
The start date for COVID-19 vaccinations is the same to allow for potential co administration of flu and COVID-19 vaccinations.
Social care staff without an employer-led occupational health scheme can continue to access the flu vaccination through their GP, community pharmacy or National Booking Service.
For COVID-19 vaccination, employers can signpost staff to the most convenient vaccination offer which may be through the National Booking Service (NBS), where staff can self-declare their eligibility. The National Booking Service opened for bookings from the public from Monday 23 September 2024. The last available appointment date on NBS will be Friday 20 December 2024 for both flu and COVID-19 vaccinations.
Read full DHSC letter, 27 September 2024
Get Winter Strong campaign – 30 September 2024 - UKHSA§
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) published a press release highlighting data which shows over the past 2 winters (October to May, 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024) at least 18,000 deaths were associated with flu, despite last winter being a relatively mild flu season.
To help reduce the impact of winter viruses on those most at risk, as well as ease NHS winter pressures, UKHSA – with Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England – has launch a scaled-up Get Winter Strong campaign. The campaign will urge those eligible to get their flu and COVID-19 vaccination when invited, ahead of winter, targeting those at greatest risk and for the first time will encourage pregnant women to also get their respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and whooping cough vaccination.
To support stakeholders with the promotion of the flu and COVID vaccines and the RSV vaccines, there are two toolkits which have been jointly produced with NHS England:
UKHSA has also provided a maternal vaccines toolkit for those stakeholders looking to promote the whooping cough vaccine.
If you have trouble accessing any of the toolkits, please email externalaffairs@ukhsa.gov.uk.
Promotion of vaccines§
DHSC is interested to hear from stakeholders who are looking to promote vaccines this year. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like to do something bespoke (such as input or suggested text for a blog or article) or would like to use DHSC spokespeople if you are planning a webinar or briefing for your audiences. DHSC are also looking for case studies of people (or their children) hospitalised by flu or COVID-19 and willing to share their experiences to encourage others to take up the vaccine offer(s) for use in press and social media.
Please mail externalaffairs@ukhsa.gov.uk if you may be able to support with this.
NHS kicks off COVID and flu jabs to protect against ‘tripledemic’ – 3 October 2024 – NHS England §
The rollout of COVID and flu vaccines for older adults, care home residents and those with long term health conditions kicks off today (Thursday 3 October) as the NHS drive to protect against a ‘tripledemic’ of viruses this winter continues. Find out more.
UKHSA: Cold weather communications toolkit 2024/25§
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced that the Cold-Health Alerting system, jointly provided by UKHSA and the Met Office, will go live on Friday 1 November. They advised stakeholders to sign up for Weather-Health Alerts, which are distributed via email and used by organisations to plan for adverse weather conditions. Registration link here.
To assist in spreading cold weather messages, UKHSA also updated its cold weather communications toolkit for 2024/25. They recommended to use the toolkit’s resources ahead of the alert system’s launch but ask that messaging not be used until alerts are issued. Toolkit here.