The purpose of the programme.

Last year Welsh Government included staff working in adult residential care and nursing homes into the 2018-19 vaccination programme. This was because the vaccination of staff in long term care settings has been shown to be effective in reducing the spread of influenza and illness and deaths in residents. It can also help to ensure business continuity by reducing flu related staff illness and the need to provide agency cover.

Including domiciliary care workers in the vaccination programme

The social care sector has a crucial role to play in preventing hospital admissions over the winter period, particularly for older people. Welsh Government believe that including domiciliary care workers in this season’s vaccination programme will further help prevent unnecessary hospital admissions and increase winter resilience. This also aligns with their ambition to develop a whole system approach to collaborative working between health and social care. Domiciliary care provides direct personal care and support to people in their own homes and staff often have regular contact with vulnerable people are going from one home to the next. This means that they are at risk of infection and of spreading the virus to vulnerable people who equally may not produce as good an immune response to the vaccination.

Eligible staff

All staff employed by domiciliary care services as described above and who are in regular contact with vulnerable adults are eligible. The majority of these staff will be providing direct personal or clinical care to these people in their own homes. All employers are expected to take a planned approach to identifying staff in regular contact with clients and confirm their eligibility to community pharmacies as outlined below.

Programme delivery

The programme will be delivered through the community pharmacy NHS seasonal influenza vaccination service. Health boards will need to include domiciliary care workers amongst
the eligible groups to whom community pharmacies providing this service can provide vaccination. Community pharmacies will be expected to check the eligibility of individuals who present for vaccination, either by seeing a letter or voucher from the domiciliary care service confirming employment and eligibility. Domiciliary care workers should be vaccinated wherever possible through the community pharmacy service to relieve pressure on general practices. However, domiciliary care workers who are in a clinical risk group eligible for NHS flu vaccination, may choose to be vaccinated at their own general practice.