This year in line with Public Health England guidance, we are offering three flu vaccines each being age specific; two are injected & the third is nasal. They are:

Adjuvanted trivalent: for

• age 65 & over (date of birth on or before March 31 1954)

Quadrivalent: for patients under 65 in a risk category ie:

• who are pregnant
• with chronic (long term) respiratory disease such as severe asthma or COPD
• with coronary heart disease, heart failure, diabetes, liver or kidney disease, stroke, TIA & chronic neurological disease
• who have a weakened immune system due to treatments that suppress the immune system eg chemotherapy & conditions such as HIV
• who are carers or frontline health or social care workers
• children aged over 6 months to 2 years with a long term condition

Nasal: for children

• born on or after 01.09.2014 & on or before 31.08.2016
• at risk due to asthma, diabetes etc to age 17

Flu strains change, therefore, the vaccine varies from year to year & we advise patients in any of the above categories to take advantage of the annual campaign to protect themselves from flu this winter.

If you or your child is in any of the above groups please phone the surgery on: 01326 558714 to book your appointment.

The shingles immunisation programme:

• the age cohorts of patients are eligible to receive this vaccine are:
• patients become eligible on their 70th or 78th birthday
• any patient who was previously eligible but has not had it
• eligibility ceases on the day of your 80th birthday
• we offer vaccination opportunistically and will be contacting patients in the new 2018/2019 groups but should you wish to please phone the surgery as above to book your appointment
• this vaccine is contraindicated & will not be given to individuals who are immunosuppressed
• further information is available on www.shinglesaware.co.uk

Should you have any questions or require further information about anything in this update please contact the surgery.