{"id":796346,"date":"2026-10-08T21:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T21:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796346\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T21:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T21:40:12","slug":"nhs-braces-for-worst-flu-season-since-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796346\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS braces for worst flu season since pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prof Frankie Swords, the NHS<\/a> medical director, said there were indications of looming winter pressure for the health service.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cFrom an NHS perspective, it is very early in the season, but the number of admissions for flu are the highest that I can remember seeing at this time of year, and it\u2019s coincided with just the start of the expected increase in Covid cases in our hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is coming on the back of the busiest summer we\u2019ve ever had in our emergency departments<\/a>. We have got very, very busy hospitals, so slightly ominous early signs of winter pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are three types of flu virus and, while it is too early to know which one may dominate this winter, the current vaccine protects against all three. Early data show there is an equal mix of subtypes A(H3N2) and A(H1N1) in England, the UKHSA said.<\/p>\n

Prof Swords revealed that 3.9 million people had had their flu vaccinations since the start of last month.<\/p>\n

The NHS started vaccinating pregnant women, toddlers and school-age children from Sept 1, with adults aged 65 and over and other eligible adults offered the protection from Oct 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn September, on average, 95 per cent of our occupancy was used every day \u2013 and that\u2019s September,\u201d said Prof Swords.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo although the weather\u2019s still nice, and perhaps people aren\u2019t thinking too much about flu at the moment, we are acting early and I\u2019d really encourage people to act early. Winter is coming, and the pressure is going to build and rise as temperatures fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Analysis suggests that the vaccination programme in England last winter prevented around 100,000 hospital admissions and 7,000 deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prof Frankie Swords, the NHS medical director, said there were indications of looming winter pressure for the health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[2211,8447,102,4499,2960,2196,50,200201,5438,56,225,209645,54,55],"class_list":["post-796346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-coronavirus","tag-flu","tag-health","tag-health-news","tag-healthcare","tag-hospitals","tag-news","tag-nhs-national-health-service","tag-standard","tag-uk","tag-uk-news","tag-ukhsa-uk-health-security-agency","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}