Can Health Care Assistants (HCAs) give flu jabs?
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) have recently published a document, “National Minimum Standards for Immunisation Training” which includes the statement: “Anyone who immunises or advises on immunisation should be on a relevant professional register such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the General Medical Council or equivalent”. Although the RCN has endorsed this document, following discussions with the HPA authors we have reached an agreed position. In some practices it may well be appropriate for supervised HCAs to administer flu vaccinations by using a patient-specific order (PSO) if the supervising nurse deems such action to be in the patient’s interest. The HPA and RCN believe that HCAs should not administer any part of the childhood vaccination programme. The document can be downloaded from the HPA website: http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/vaccination/training_menu.htm References Patient Group Directions Guidance & Information RCN Publication code 001 370 Links D
