Flu vaccination: influence of GP practices

Role: lead

Funder: Wawickshire county council

Dates: 2014

Background

Flu is an acute viral infection that can lead to serious complications for individuals within at-risk groups. Evidence indicates that aspects of organization and delivery within GP practices can have an influence on the rates of flu vaccination uptake. This study aimed to identify and contrast the practices of both high and lower performing GP practices (in terms of vaccination uptake amongst high-risk groups) in order to isolate factors associated with high flu vaccination uptake.  

What did we do?

This was a qualitative study. A total of 18 practice managers and 2 GPs from 20 GP practices were interviewed, 10 with high and low vaccination rates, respectively. Framework Analysis was used to analyse the data.

What did we find?

Several key factors clearly distinguished the high from the lower performers: having a lead member of staff who demonstrated tenacity, having aspirational uptake targets, having developed and used additional prompts within IT systems to identify eligible patients, having GPs who were opportunistically vaccinating, and using phone calls as a first-line strategy to invite patients for vaccination.  

Impact

Best practice for increasing flu vaccination uptake identified by this study has been included in UK government guidance for GP practices in England since 2016. A local version of the best practice guidance was also developed and distributed every year to all 157 GP practices across Coventry and Warwickshire between at least 2014-2019.The sharing mechanism varied by year. For the 2018/19 season for example, e-posters were sent to all frontline staff which contained a link to the original research.

Publication

Newby, K., Parsons, J., Brooks, J., Leslie, R., Inglis, N. (2016). Identifying strategies to increase influenza vaccination in GP practices: A positive deviance approach. Family Practice, 1-6, doi:10.1093/fampra/cmw016.