Influenza vaccine for children

Unfortunately GP practices nationally have experienced problems obtaining the flu vaccination for children. We were not in a position to plan clinics until 18th October as we were only able to submit an order from this date. In addition, until that date we were not informed of the number we could order at any one time and the delivery timescales.

Practices have only been able to order a capped number of vaccines and this is significantly lower than the number of children that we have to vaccinate.  We will be able to order more going forward,  however, due to the capped number of vaccines available advice has been given for GP practices to prioritise children who are in the ‘at risk’ category aged 6 months to 4 years and 11 to 18 year olds. Therefore our first clinic will be just for those children. Letters are being sent out to those children this week. If your child is in the at risk category and is aged between 4-11 we would advise that they have the vaccine at school.

Children aged 2-3 who are entitled to the vaccine but are not at risk will be invited to a clinic in the next few weeks. We will then have more information about how many vaccines we can order and what the delivery timescales are.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.