Health chiefs urge people to get flu and covid jabs to protect Shropshire's NHS this winter
It's vitally important for people to get their covid and flu jabs this winter to protect local hospitals, say health chiefs.
On Monday there were 51 people who have tested positive for coronavirus on the wards of the acute hospital trusts in Shropshire and leaders of the NHS in the county want to urge people to get their jabs.
There message is that even if people catch the illnesses, be it at football matches, Christmas events or in hospital, having their vaccinations will reduce the risk of them becoming seriously ill or dying. It comes at a time when the hospitals are struggling to cope with patients who are fit for discharge but there is nowhere for them to be sent.
Simon Whitehouse, chief executive of the Shropshire and Telford Integrated Care System, said: "Vaccinations are out best defence this winter for reducing admissions.
"There is a clear link between vaccinations and the severity of disease. There is a cohort of people that we know we can avoid getting it seriously."
Nick White, the chief medical officer at the NHS in Shropshire and Telford, said: "We don't want covid in our hospitals or spread around so that patients and staff don't catch it and have to have time off."
