NHS to offer flu vaccination to people experiencing homelessness
People experiencing homelessness will be given free flu vaccination on the NHS, the Government has announced.
Vaccinations will be made available as part of the rollout later this year and ahead of winter, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said.
It comes after a recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to make NHS pneumococcal and seasonal flu vaccinations available to those experiencing homelessness.
In updated plans ahead of this flu season, community pharmacies will be able to offer flu vaccinations to children to support improvements in ‘access and uptake’.
Service delivery for two- and three-year-olds will begin in pharmacies from 1 October to ‘supplement’ the offer in general practice, which will start vaccinations from 1 September.
And community pharmacy service delivery for school-aged children will begin from 1 December for those who missed the opportunity to be vaccinated in school.
The government said that children in clinical risk groups from six months to less than two years cannot be vaccinated by a community pharmacy.
Secretary of state for health and social care, James Murray said: ‘For too long, people experiencing homelessness have faced some of the worst health outcomes in the country and have too often been missed by services many of us take for granted.
‘They should not miss out on potentially life-saving protection against flu when they can be at similar, or even greater, risk from the disease than some groups already eligible for vaccination.’
Caroline Temmink, NHS director of vaccination, said: ‘The NHS is for everyone, and we know that people who are homeless face greater health risks from flu, so it’s right they should receive the same potentially life-saving protection as other eligible at-risk groups.
‘This is an important decision in tackling health inequalities and the NHS will set out detailed plans for roll out in due course.’
Professor Andrew Hayward, UKHSA National Lead for Inclusion Health added: ‘This commitment to roll out flu vaccines to people using hostels, night-shelters or sleeping rough will make an important contribution to wider cross-government initiatives to reduce the many health harms caused by homelessness.’
It comes as the UK Health Security Agency has published a toolkit designed to help reduce inequalities in vaccine uptake.
The guidance involves reviewing data to identify variation in vaccine uptake between different groups and understand the behavioural and structural barriers involved.
It also sets out steps for designing interventions with community input to address poor uptake.
The Government had rejected a recommendation from the Health and Social Care Committee to declare the current vaccination strategy ‘a failure’ and develop a new plan focusing on uptake in the early years.
In a report published in January on the first 1,000 days of life, the committee concluded that the Government urgently needs a new strategy to turn around the falling vaccination rates and should aim for 95% coverage throughout England.
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