NHS boss fears flu jabs won’t work for OAPs and lead to NHS being ‘inundated’
FEARS hospitals will be inundated by flu patients this winter are escalating, NHS chiefs said yesterday.
Bosses believe the flu jab may fail to protect the over-65s in line with the evidence from last year’s vaccination programme.
Pensioners who had the jab fared no better than those who did not, yet children who were injected had a 66 per cent higher rate or protection, figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph show.
NHS England chief Sir Malcolm Grant said: “We face winter better prepared than we have ever been, but more scared than we have ever been.”
He told a conference in Bournemouth there was a “strong likelihood” of hospitals being “inundated” with people with flu.
Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said of the jab: “At this stage in the winter none of us know how it is going to go.
“It wasn’t very effective last year but it is our best hope.”
NHS staff have been urged to “do their duty” and get vaccinated.
THE world is facing an antibiotics apocalypse because growing resistance could see them lose all effectiveness, Dame Sally warned yesterday.