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Hi Sharon
This is one of those arguments which is fairly polarised. About 10 – 12 years ago, I was asked to look at this for the Environment Agency. The Ops Director basically said that if the floods of one year had coincided with the peak of flu the following year, the organisation would – to use his words – have been screwed. We looked at all the arguments for and against in an organisation that is geographically disparate. This meant there would be a big cost in employees being away from their workplace which is just as likely to be a river bank or remote pumping station as the office upstairs. We concluded against, thinking that at best it would be an insurance policy that might save the organisation some public embarrassment once every 30 years.
Role forward 10 years to me being an independent provider and a few clients have asked me about it – which is a slightly awkward conversation as this is something I can make money on. However, On discussion of the pros and cons most have decided against. Two have gone for it, one of which was caught out very badly the year before they started, and I am now approaching the third year of providing this to them. Others still express an interest but a couple of years of low flu numbers have kept them on the “no” side of the debate. It seems everyone wants to do this when the flu numbers will be high but as we all know, that is almost impossible to predict. As one HR Manager recently said to me in a wry tone of voice, “ we just want to back the winners really”.
All you can do is discuss the arguments for and against, one of which will be your own time and resources and then make a decision. All the research I have seen tends to concentrate on one winter and I think this can only be truly measured over a much longer period. If you provide flu vacs regularly my own gut feeling is that in most winters you will lose, but very occasionally it might be one of the best decisions you ever made.
Thanks
Lindsey
Lindsey Hall
Director and Independent Occupational Health Adviser
Split Dimension Ltd
Phone: 01454 852715
Fax: 01454 740045
Mobile: 07771 596111
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From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of sharon naylor
Sent: 31 July 2013 19:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [OCC-HEALTH] Flu vaccination benefits (or not)
In these
days of shrinking budgets I have been asked by a client to comment on what
demonstrable benefits there are to continuing to offer flu jabs to staff. This
is not within a health care setting by the way. My personal opinion is that the
money they spend on this exercise might be better diverted to other things eg
funding functional capacity assessments with a physio for MSD/ergonomic issues
(of which there are many), and those that "need" the jabs eg high
risk groups should and will be covered by GPs.
It will doubtless be an unpopular move if they stop offering flu jabs. Before
my time they moved away from OH doing them (hurrah!) and went to a voucher
system that was under subscribed with a fair bit of unused vouchers at
the end of flu season, main reason being that individuals werent that bothered
if the service wasnt offered on site. With current staffing levels in OH
I am reluctant to take this on, and also think its a bit late in the day to
start thinking about doing them because of potential problems with supply. My
own experience with a previous employer was that take up was only between
10-13% of employee population and there was no real reduction in stats on
sickness absence for flu (and this is even including people who cite flu for 1
day absences irrespective of the fact that it was more likely a bad cold)
I have looked in all normal places, HPA, Jisc archives etc - lots of
studies/reports stating value of the jabs in specific settings, (eg NHS)
or from the manufacturers where I`m not convinced of an unbiased view.
Anyone aware of any studies that present some stats on what perceived, but
preferably measured value there is in offering this service eg reduction
in absence?
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