To think free flu jabs for NHS admin staff is ridiculous??

[thisisjustridiculous]

My SIL is admin staff in the NHS, she has no patient contact and no real contact with medical staff, beyond half an hour a week.

She’s just got a free flu jab! AIBU to think this is disgusting? It must cost the NHS so much, admin staff should have to pay. I agree that frontline staff should get it for free to protect the vulnerable but admin staff shouldn’t.

Op, you would be absolutely outraged if you seen the full pay, sick pay bill for nhs staff.
It is staggering

So you would force NHS admin to get it but make them pay for it. Lovely.

Admin staff , even though you may not realise it, play an important role in the nhs and it’s amazing how quickly other things would fall apart without it

Loads of companies and public sector staff get given it for free.

Oh get over yourself. Myself and my colleagues work damn hard with patient care at the forefront. It’s nothing to do with admin that you can’t access care. You are blaming the wrong people.

I work at a university and we get it free too. They clearly think it’s a small price to pay to make sure staff aren’t off sick.

Your post makes no sense,
Paying sick leave for flu for the nhs is surely a much higher cost to the taxpayer, which is reduced by staff being protected from flu. Also even spending a limited time face to fave with clinical staff flu could be passed on and affect care/ cancel clinics etc.

The level of vitriol feels like you must really dislike your SIL?

AIBU? 96% say Yes
OP argues the toss.

Ah, so there it is. You hold some grudge against NHS admin staff and now want to punish them, and at the same time risk creating even longer queues for patients.

Not since Palantir! 40% natural redundancies last year and another 40% compulsory this year. It’s really difficult for the staff knowing they are being replaced by AI.

the ironic thing is it’s the middle class professions that will suffer the most.

I expect it works out well worth the money, when they don't get sick. What a thing to complain about, keeping your employs well

In my previous workplace, they brought a pharmacist in to offer the flu vaccine to anyone who wanted it (for free) - it just made financial sense to the business to prevent as much sick leave as possible over the winter…. I really don’t understand why anyone would begrudge someone a free vaccine that could prevent the NHS losing money on avoidable sick leave?

I think you misunderstood. I was being sarcastic. It certainly didn’t come across well. Just for clarity I do not agree with OP! I’m NHS admin and AI does concern me a bit.

Interesting point, full disclosure, I am a retired nurse and we used to have posters up giving the symptoms of flu, as opposed to colds, largely the same as given in this link https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/flu/
I have had flu and flu like illnesses, I could have done with them being mild or even asymptomatic!

the frontline staff - including consultants on decent salaries, can operate the phone lines and undertake the administrative tasks, while the specialist/critical/emergency care of patients can be put on hold

it totally makes sense

LOL I think you just like to moan. I’m NHS admin staff and I have patient contact and I interact with drs and nurses who have patient contact all through the day. The nhs cannot run without admin staff. Lots of employers offer the fly jag for free anyway

Who, the employer or the employee?

What do you do for a living?

I'm NHS admin and I'm getting my flu jab tomorrow. And I haven't had a sick day for 10 years.

Why should admin staff be treated worse than clinical staff? I suspect OP just dislikes and resents her SIL.

To be fair, if she can calm down rude consultants she deserves a Porsche along with her [checks notes] flu jab 😂

They don’t offer it to large groups of people just to prevent those specific individuals getting flu, they do it to create a herd immunity. The higher the uptake across the population, the greater the immunity. If a school can get something like 82% vaccinated, that school probably won’t have any cases, even in the unvaccinated. So the nhs directly benefits from as many people getting it as possible - the ‘cost’ therefore is negligible.

So a jab costs the NHS a fiver. A member of staff off sick for a week with the flu costs the NHS probably about £800 in lost time and pay, not to mention the cost of a temp and/or the cost and hassle of rearranging appointments for 6 months down the line for 40 people who may dearly need them now.

You probably had any number of asymptomatic flu infections as well!

I've known for a long time that the old trope about it not being real flu if you wouldn't get out of bed to pick up a £50 note was bollocks, but I was surprised when I looked into it how wide the range of estimates for asymptomatic flu is. And there'll be any number of infections where there's a mild symptom that goes away quickly too. But of course we don't typically test for flu if we're not feeling ill, aside from quite specific situations, so it's hard to get reliable data. Understandably NHS literature focuses on people who are ill enough to notice.

Same here, when I moved to England, my employer gave me a flu jab, big mistake, I was ill for a solid year after it (had always been healthy prior to it & had never taken a sick day off in my life), and I've suffered with a post-nasal drip ever since (that's 25years!!). It's seriously had a negative impact on my life, and a big regret of mine.

We get flu jabs from work
I never bother as I’ve never had flu. Or certainly never been bed ridden by flu