Hertfordshire. It's also the largest community trust in the London area. What have they been doing? Balanced flu team. T
Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust had the lowest uptake for community trusts in 2014/15 with 26.5 per cent of staff being vaccinated. In the 2015/16 season, they achieved a 19.5 per cent increase and had an uptake of 46 per cent.
The organisation Central London Community Healthcare has 3,000 staff in over 200 sites across London and Hertfordshire. It’s also the largest community trust in the London area.
What have they been doing? Balanced flu team To improve their uptake they included a different departments at the planning stage, these were staff from infection prevention, employee health, communications and HR. From reviewing last year’s flu campaign they were able to see that staff did not get vaccinated as they were not aware of the onsite flu clinics. To change this, their main objective for 2015/15 season was to make vaccinations more accessible and to raise awareness of the flu campaign.
Ruth Warden (NHS Employers), the winning team and Joanne Yarwood (Public Health England)
Accessibility To make onsite flu vacciantions more accessible the trust held 98 drop-in clinics which were held at times to suit staff (i.e. after patient clinics) and had walk-in appointments at employee health departments. Vaccinators also attended mandatory training and new starter sessions to offer more staff the opportunity to have the jab. For those that were not able to attend the flu vaccination clinics, peer vaccinators walked around different sites, offering to vaccinate staff. They also promoted other ways to have the jab outside of the trust. To ensure that this data was captured, the trust created a simple survey monkey form that staff could fill out.
Most improved award winner
Communications To make the campaign more visible the trust created a communications strategy that used a variety of channels. The main platform for communicating to staff was the intranet, which had a prominent flu fighter page, as well as web banners on the homepage that listed all clinic times. The trust also created a discussion board on the intranet so staff could share their reasons for having the jab, and hopefully inspire others to do the same. To keep people updated on their local flu fighter campaign, all staff emails were sent out everyday and included information on the daily flu clinics, how many staff had the jab, as well as a thank you to those that had taken the opportunity to get the flu vaccination. For those that had been vaccinated, they were encouraged to add an I’ve had my jab email signature to their emails.
All hands on deck To create healthy competition, managers were sent regular udpates on their division’s uptake rate. They were also asked to raise the profile of the flu fighter campaign at all internal meetings.
Peer vaccination To help increase accessibiilty to flu vacciantions, the trust recruited a larger number of peer vaccinators, who walked the floors, ran drop-in clinics and visited individual teams.
Contact Tom Stevenson, Head of communications Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust
[email protected]
Having a range of staff Raise the profile of your groups and departments campaign with daily emails, in your flu team gives a email signatures, screen savers sense of ownership for and promoting details on the the flu campaign. intranet. Repetition works!
www.nhsemployers.org/flu
[email protected] Follow us @NHSflufighter on Twitter and join the #flufighter conversation
© NHS Confederation 2016. Published October 2016
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