Can we know the immunization status of healthcare workers? Results of a feasibility study in hospital trusts, England, 2008.

In England, there is no surveillance system for vaccines offered to healthcare workers apart from that in place annually for the seasonal influenza vaccine. To inform the feasibility of a general vaccine uptake surveillance system and to understand which policies are currently in place, we conducted a survey in the 162 National Health Service Foundation and Acute Hospital trusts in England, by submitting a questionnaire to their occupational health departments on immunization policies and methods of storing vaccine uptake data. In total, 104 hospital trusts (64.2%) responded. All responders offer hepatitis B, tuberculosis, measles-mumps-rubella, and influenza vaccines to healthcare workers; 0.9% reported not offering varicella and 13.5% not offering tetanus-diphtheria-polio; 66.4% record staff eligible for immunizations and 68.2% record staff they have immunized. Our study suggests that setting up a surveillance system to monitor vaccine uptake in healthcare workers is possible but would be challenging, given the variation in current systems.