This is a seasonal clinic running from October every year.

Please make an appointment for your flu injection by calling reception and telling them what you require. The appoinment will usually be with the nurse.

The flu vaccination is developed annually following data collected by the World Health Organisation. The strains of flu that are most likely to be causing flu this year are identified and then included in the vaccination. This gives between 70-80% protection for those viruses that lasts for 1 year.

In Wales and the UK, this vaccine (the ‘flu jab’) is routinely offered free to people considered to be more at risk of developing complications from contracting flu.

• are 65 years of age or over
• are pregnant – this is a particularly important group that are at particularly high risk of complications from swine flu
• have a serious medical condition (see below)
• are living in a long-stay residential care home or other long-stay care facility (not including prisons, young offender institutions or university halls of residence)
• are the main carer for an elderly or disabled person whose welfare may be at risk if you fall ill
• are a frontline health or social care worker

The seasonal flu vaccine is offered free of charge to anyone who is over six months of age and has one of the following medical conditions:

• chronic (long-term) respiratory disease, such as severe asthma, COPD or bronchitis
• chronic heart disease, such as heart failure
• chronic kidney disease
• chronic liver disease
• chronic neurological disease, such as stroke, TIA, polio syndrome
• diabetes
• a weakened immune system due to conditions, such as HIV or AIDs, or treatments that suppress the immune system, such as chemotherapy.

You may also be offered a pneumococcal vaccination at the same time as the flu jab. This is a different vaccination aimed at invasive pneumococcal bacteria that are responsible for severe infections such as pneumonia and meningitis. It is a once only vaccination, unlike the flu jab, and is available to most of the same groups as the flu jab – ask us if you are unsure.

Everybody aged 65 and over should now be immunised to help protect them against pneumococcal infection which can cause diseases such as pneumonia, septicaemia (blood poisoning) and meningitis. Please phone the surgery during September to make an appointment if the above applies to you.