Anglian Community Enterprise (ACE), is currently the top-performing health trust in the eastern region when it comes to staff flu vaccinations.

81% of ACE’s clinical patient-facing staff have received the flu jab and this success, says ACE’s Occupational Health Lead, Carol McLeod (pictured with Frank Sims, Chief Executive for ACE), is very good news for patients.

“Flu is a killer, so it is very important that our clinical staff who are treating patients – many of them elderly – are vaccinated so they are not inadvertently passing on this illness during the winter months. Patient safeguarding is at the very top of ACE’s agenda, so we are delighted our staff vaccination campaign is proving successful,” said Carol.

She put the success of the campaign this year down to a number of factors and praised the work of her small team, immunisation nurse Lauren Wolfe and occupational health administrators, Vicky Williams and Carolyne Chandler.

“Firstly, we started our campaign planning very early this year. In June we were booking team meetings and communicating the importance of the campaign. Lauren has concentrated on getting out into the field, visiting clinics and focusing particularly on those hard-to-reach staff due to the nature of their shifts or clinic work. We’ve also utilised very valuable spreadsheets which enables our team to filter those staff who have not yet been approached.

“We are confident we can improve further on our current 81% rate and are now focusing on face-to-face updates and induction sessions. It’s about making every contact count and I am very grateful to those team-leaders who have worked so hard to help us,” added Carol.