Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Uptake amongst GP Patient Groups in England 2010/11

The Seasonal influenza vaccination programme for 2010/11 for England was set out in the CMO Letter published 23 June 2010. The Department of Health (DH) recommended that seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine be offered to the following eligible groups of GP patients: all those aged 65 years and over all those aged 6 months to under 65 years falling in a clinical at-risk group, those living in long-stay residential care homes or other long-stay care facilities those who are in receipt of a carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person whose welfare may be at risk if the carer falls ill. In addition, and for the first time, pregnant women (at any stage of pregnancy) were offered the seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine whether in a clinical at-risk group or not. In undertaking the monitoring surveillance programme, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) coordinates the collection and reporting of national [England] data on the uptake of seasonal influenza vaccine by these groups for DH for a range of purposes: to support assessment by DH, SHAs and PCTs of the management and delivery of the vaccination programme whilst the programme is running to allow PCTs, SHAs and the DH to assess local, regional and national delivery and compare with previous influenza vaccination programmes to identify groups (by age and/or at-risk) and geographical area where coverage is low (and high) establish the collection of uptake data for pregnant women, and to support pharmacovigilance This report describes the uptake of seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine amongst eligible GP patient groups during the 2010/11 seasonal influenza vaccination programme in England. Data are shown by different eligible and clinical at-risk groups, with comparisons made with vaccine uptake in previous collections.