Flu and Shingles

Flu Vaccinations - September 2016 to March 2017

CLINICS - available Monday to Friday as of 19^th September 2016

We would like to invite all eligible patients to make an appointment to have the yearly flu vaccination at their GP surgery. The flu jab is available every year to help protect adults and children at risk of flu and its complications.

Your GP advises you to have the flu vaccine if you are:

aged 65 years or over (date of birth before 31/3/1952)
aged 2, 3 or 4 (date of birth between 1/9/11-31/8/14)
pregnant
a carer
anyone with a Diabetes or COPD, some other chronic disease (e.g. heart, lung, liver, kidney, neurological disease) or a weak immune system

Anyone in these risk groups are more likely to develop potentially serious complications so it's recommended that have a flu jab every year to protect them.

We invite you to make an appointment by calling 01335 300588.

PLEASE NOTE: On advice from our Patient Group, we are trialling text and voicemail messages to encourage eligible patients to have this important vaccine. Only certain groups of eligible patients will receive a message until we test the system.

Text message: Jo Bloggs, you are eligible to receive a flu vaccination. Please call The Surgery on 01335 300588 to make an appointment, or text NO to 07????????* to decline

Voice messages: This is a message from The Surgery for Jo Bloggs. Please confirm that this is you. Press 1 for yes 2 for no. (If yes:) You are eligible to receive a flu vaccination. Please call 01335/300588 to make an appointment. Please choose from the following options - Press 1 to repeat this message Press 2 to decline this vaccination Press 3 to end this message. Your health is important to us. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.

If you get a repeated call, it is because a voice message is not classed as delivered until the main body of the message has been listened to. If the patient hangs up quickly, the system will try again, to a maximum of 3 attempts.

We apologise if this causes an inconvenience for any patients - both the Surgery and the PPG felt that it was important to communicate the need for this vaccine as effectively as possible, and we hope that the use of this tool will increase our uptake and improve the protection against flu in the Ashbourne community for everyone's benefit.