As we enter the 2024-2025 flu season, the School Aged Immunisation team at Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust is reminding parents and carers of the importance of protecting their children against the virus by ensuring they have their flu vaccination.
Flu is not just a heavy cold, it can be a very unpleasant illness for children and can lead to serious complications, such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Children are also known to be ‘super spreaders’, due to them being in regular close contact at school and through extra-curricular clubs and activities. This means they can easily and unwittingly help with the spread of the virus, passing flu onto more vulnerable members of their family.
The children’s flu vaccine is safe, effective, and free, and is being offered as a simple nasal spray to all school-age children and young people, from Reception age up to, and including, Year 11; including those who are home educated and in special education.
If a child or young person is at an elevated risk from flu due to one or more medical conditions or treatments and unable to receive the nasal flu vaccine, they will be offered the vaccination by injection.
An alternative injectable vaccine is also available for those who may not accept the use of porcine gelatine in medical products. Parents and carers should contact the immunisation team on the number below to discuss the options available.
Introducing e-consent
Starting this academic year, the immunisation team is introducing a new way for parents and carers to consent to their children’s vaccinations online using an electronic consent (e-consent) form.
The new e-consent process is easy, secure, and convenient, and can be accessed via smart phone (Apple and Android), tablet or computer. The new e-consent form aims to make vaccination sessions run as smoothly as possible, making the process more efficient for schools, parents and carers.
Prior to their child’s planned immunisation session, parents and carers of children and young people in mainstream education will receive an email or text from their child’s school containing a link to the e-consent form and unique school code.
Families unable to access email or the internet should call our immunisation team on the number below. A member of the team can take verbal consent over the phone or provide their child’s school with a paper consent form.
If a child is not in mainstream education, is home educated, or has missed their vaccination when the immunisation team visited their school, it’s not too late to vaccinate. The immunisation team will be running school-based clinics outside of school hours, as well as countywide community clinics. To book an appointment please call them on the number below.
Please note, it is important parents fill out a consent form, whether giving consent or declining the flu vaccine for their child. Failure to respond will result in further contact from the immunisation team to ensure they have received the offer of a flu vaccination.
To find out more, or to book an appointment for your child to have their nasal spray or injectable vaccine, give the immunisation team a call on 0300 421 8140, email FluImmunisation@ghc.nhs.uk and/or visit our website: School-aged Immunisation Team > CYPS Glos Health & Care NHS (ghc.nhs.uk)
