Vaccinations

Planning is well underway at NHS Shetland for the flu and Covid vaccination programmes starting this autumn.

The first groups of people to be offered vaccinations will be those who are recommended to have flu only. This includes people aged 65-74 and people with underlying health conditions.

These clinics will start in September, and letters, emails and text messages inviting people to make an appointment are starting to arrive now for people who are registered with the Lerwick, Brae, Levenwick, Scalloway, Bixter and Walls health centres. Please follow the instructions to make an appointment at Grantfield Vaccination Centre using the national portal or the national contact centre. For further guidance on booking your appointment through the portal, please click the following link to watch a helpful video. If you have difficulty with those options, then you can contact the Shetland vaccination team on shet.vaccination-team@nhs.scot or 01595 743319. 

For those registered with the Hillswick, Unst, Yell and Whalsay practices, please look out for local information and invites to clinics at your own practice.    

As in previous years, school pupils will be offered flu vaccination at school, and appointments for pre-school children will be at their local GP practice. There will also be an option for some children to have their vaccines at nursery, as we are piloting this at a couple of venues. All pregnant women will be offered the flu vaccine through maternity services.

As well as those groups above, all unpaid carers; people who live with someone who is immunosuppressed; poultry workers and bird handlers; people who are experiencing homelessness or substance use; and all NHS workers and frontline social care workers are also recommended to be vaccinated against flu. Please look out for further information on how to access an appointment.

The programme for those people who are recommended to have both flu and Covid vaccinations will start later in October and run through to December. That will only include people living in care homes, those aged 75 and over and people with a weakened immune system.  Evidence now shows that it is better for these folk who are at highest risk from Covid and flu to have their vaccines later on in the programme because their immunity reduces over time. The peak times for flu and Covid infections tend to be from the Christmas holidays onwards, so the best time to be vaccinated is late November or early December to give enough time for the vaccines to work but also be at their most effective when the viruses start circulating in the community.  

As in previous years, people who are housebound will be offered vaccination at home, and there will be local clinics on Bressay, Foula, Fetlar, Skerries and Fair Isle for the residents of those islands. For these groups, if you receive a letter inviting you to an appointment at the Grantfield Vaccination Centre, this has probably been automatically generated in error. Please ignore this and/or contact the vaccination team for advice.

For further information on flu vaccination, including further details on which vaccines are offered to which groups of people and leaflets in a variety of languages and formats (including BSL and Easy Read), please visit the NHS Inform website: Flu vaccine | NHS inform

There is similar information on Covid vaccination here: The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine | NHS inform