More than a third of hospital staff fail to report getting the flu vaccine

The HSE has set an official target of having a 75% uptake of the flu vaccine by healthcare workers. The vaccination rate for nursing staff was 63.2%.

Flu vaccination levels among healthcare workers in hospitals reduced last winter with more than one in three staff failing to report being inoculated against the infectious disease.

New figures published by the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) show 64% of more than 69,000 employees working across 47 acute hospitals received the flu vaccine between October and May – down from 71% in the previous winter season.

The HSE has set an official target of having a 75% uptake of the vaccine by healthcare workers. Vaccination levels among healthcare staff in almost 300 nursing homes and other long-term, residential care facilities were even lower at 55.2% – down from 63.3% the previous year.

However, the HPSC said it is possible that some hospital and nursing home staff may have received vaccinations from their GPs or pharmacies and may not have reported being vaccinated to their workplace managers.

Separate figures on 160 residential care facilities show the proportion of long-term residents who received the flu vaccine was effectively unchanged at 93%.

Vaccination rates among respite residents in the same centres were considerably lower at 82.8%, although it represented a significant improvement on the previous year’s level of 56.5%.

Among individual hospitals, the highest uptake of the vaccine was recorded among staff at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda at 91.6%, while the lowest vaccination level was at Kilcreene Orthopaedic Hospital, Kilkenny, at 37.3% with only 31 of the hospital’s 83 healthcare workers having received the vaccine.

Other hospitals where less than half of all healthcare staff were vaccinated against the flu included Louth County Hospital, Dundalk (49.9%); Nenagh Hospital (47.0%); Ennis Hospital (48.2%); Letterkenny University Hospital (47.1%); Mayo University Hospital (44.8%); Sligo University Hospital (46.5%) and Bon Secours Hospital, Tralee (44.1%).

Figures on vaccination levels at seven hospitals were not available including all Children’s Health Ireland hospitals as well as University Hospital Limerick.

Across different categories of healthcare workers in hospitals, medical and dental staff had the highest vaccination levels at 78.8%, while “other” patient and client care staff had the lowest uptake at 50.7%. The vaccination rate for nursing staff was 63.2%.

The HPSC said achieving a high uptake of flu vaccinations among healthcare workers is recognised as “a vital infection control measure which reduced the risk of transmission and the potential for severe disease among both staff and patients". 

The National Immunisation Advisory Committee has recommended annual flu vaccinations every year since 2008 for healthcare workers.

The HPSC said there had been a reduction in both vaccination rates and the number of facilities participating in the annual survey of uptake of the flu vaccine in the recent winter season compared to 2020/21 when high levels were recorded during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Almost 130 residential care facilities that had provided data in 2020/21 did not respond to the latest survey. The HPSC said there is a continued need to improve the monitoring capacity within HSE settings so that improvements in the flu vaccine uptake across all health sectors can be demonstrated.