Revealed: Priority Groups For Swine Flu Vaccination, UK

02 Aug 2009

NHS staff will be vaccinated first in the Government's swine flu vaccination campaign, followed by pregnant women, young children and adults with chronic illnesses, Pulse can exclusively reveal. Pulse has learned from a senior Government adviser that a 'pecking order' has been drawn up for vaccination.

Everyone in the UK will be vaccinated eventually, but priority is set to be given in the following order:

- Healthcare professionals
- Pregnant women
- All children under five
- Adults aged under 65 with a chronic illness
- All young people aged under 18
- All other patients not in the categories above

The source told Pulse: 'The priorities for vaccination are a big priority for the Department of Health. It's almost certain that GPs and healthcare professionals will be vaccinated first, because you've got to keep your workforce going.

'After that, at-risk groups will be vaccinated. This will mean pregnant women, because there seems to be a suggestion that they are at specific risk.

'The remaining groups will be all children under five, those aged under 65 with a chronic illness, and then under 18s.

'That's the tentative pecking order. Older people are not a priority group for the swine flu vaccination as it seems that everybody born before 1958 might have been already exposed to this H1N1 swine flu virus.'

BMA negotiators are still locked in discussions with the DH over exactly how the vaccination campaign will be run, and how it will be financed.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the BMA's GP committee, told Pulse: 'The £7.51 GPs are currently paid [for flu vaccination] is part of a package of financial arrangements to run the practice. Swine flu is completely different, likely to cover different groups than the seasonal flu campaign and will have a completely different order of magnitude, so will require extra resources. That's what we are trying to negotiate.'

Richard Hoey, editor of Pulse, said: 'The priority groups plans planned are almost a mirror image of those for the seasonal flu campaign, and that's going to cause GPs a real headache.

'The big flu vaccine clinics that GPs run are largely aimed at the over-65s, but they are specifically identified as a low-priority group for swine flu vaccination, so it is going to be much more difficult for practices to run the two campaigns side by side.'

Source
PULSE