GP Practises across the UK will be extremely busy in the weeks running up to Christmas. The government has announced that all priority groups such as the elderly and children must be vaccinated against the swine flu, this will be along with the seasonal flu vaccination. It said that during the winter season there will be a high demand for locum agency doctors.

During the winter period it is said that doctors will find it very difficult to distinguish between the common flu with the swine flu. The swine flu campaign will start vaccinating in October in hope to maintain the winter rush of patients booking appointments for flu like symptoms.

GP’s are worried that they may be a shortage of the drug, the Pharmaceutical Company who produces the drug has alleged they may not be able to produce the amount of  drug needed during this time, approximately 132 million doses will be needed in all in the winter period.

At present the amount of appointments made by patients for swine flu like symptoms has decreased, however the amount of deaths in healthy people has increased from 12% to 21%.

MPP Locums as a medical recruitment agency feel it is important to keep up to date with the current medical sector and the issues they are facing, we as a locum doctor agency currently recruit doctors in all specialities to meet the demands of NHS.