Publish date: 23 September 2021
Booking your appointment
Please note that staff who did not have their second vaccine more than 26 weeks ago will not be eligible for the booster. Please ensure you are within the required time limit when making your appointment or you will be turned away at the Vaccination Centre.
All Mersey Care staff with clinical contact, including social contact with patients or service users, are eligible for the vaccines, as well as those staff who are over 50.
Go to the Simply Book site on YourSpace here. Both vaccines will be administered at the same time. Appointments will last up to 15 minutes and you will need to be observed for 15 minutes after administration prior to leaving the vaccination centre. Please do not share this link outside of the organisation, we are only able to vaccinate staff who will need to present their ID badge on arrival at the centre.
Why it’s important to have your flu vaccine alongside your COVID-19 booster
NHS England has advised co-administration of vaccines to: improve experience, improve uptake of both vaccines, reduce administrative burdens on services and reduce health inequalities. Professor Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer said ‘Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has looked at data from trials on giving flu in one arm and COVID-19 in the other at the same time. The antibody response to both of those vaccines is not impaired by doing so, and the tolerability of doing that at the same time is also fine. We should gain efficiencies by doing that where we can. If people are offered the chance of two together, they should do so’.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) COVID Immunisations Chair, Professor Wei Shen Lim also specified that flu and COVID-19 vaccination can be administered at the same time, although ‘usually’ in different arms.
Flu
Last year saw the biggest NHS influenza vaccine programme ever. Its aim was to offer protection to as many eligible people as possible. As a result of non-pharmaceutical interventions which were in place for COVID-19 such as: mask wearing, physical and safe distancing and restricted international travel, influenza activity levels were exceptionally low globally in 2020/2021. This year (2021/2022), however, as a result, low levels of population immunity against influenza are expected.
We’re in a situation where social mixing and contact have returned to pre-pandemic norms. It’s expected that 2021/2022 will be the first winter in the UK where seasonal influenza virus, along with other respiratory diseases, will co-circulate alongside COVID-19. Therefore, influenza vaccines are a priority to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with influenza and to reduce hospital admission during a time when the NHS and social care may also be managing outbreaks of COVID-19.
COVID-19
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) stated that the primary aim of the 2021 COVID-19 booster programme is to maintain protection against severe COVID-19 disease, specifically hospitalisations and death over the winter of 2021/2022, and to ensure protection is maintained at a high level throughout the winter months for adults who are vulnerable including health and social care staff.
Data from a COV-BOOST trial indicated that booster doses of COVID-19 are generally well tolerated and provide a substantial increase in vaccine induced immune responses, in particular, a mRNA vaccine provides a strong booster effect regardless of whether the priority course was Pfizer BioNTech or AstraZeneca.
Endorsed and encouraged by our senior leaders
Our Chief Executive Joe Rafferty said: “The efficacy of vaccinations has been proven time after time during this last year. As healthcare professionals and providers, we should be seen as leaders. Clinically vulnerable people are six times more likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19 than their peers. Together with the risks of flu transmission, that puts us all in a very clear position of responsibility.”
Trish Bennett, Director of Nursing and Operations and Jo Scoltock, Head of Nursing would also like to encourage you to be vaccinated, please watch their short video below.
Vaccination centre
The vaccination centre is at Maghull Health Park, Parkbourn, Maghull, L31 1HW. (Site entrance is via Villas Road or for those familiar with the what3words navigation system, use: rudder.cringes.tested). It’s open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and 9am til 8pm on Wednesdays.
If you have any enquiries, please email Vaccinations