Mr. Paul Reid:

I will take the second question and briefly address the first. Then I will ask my colleague, Ms O'Connor, to give some specifics on our community responses.

On the flu vaccine, we are anxious to make a significant increase in numbers. Last year, it was about 60% overall across the system in terms of flu vaccine uptake by healthcare workers. However, there is significant variation in that, both on a geographical basis and between hospitals and community settings. There is a mixed variance in all of that. That is not a sustainable position as we head into dealing with Covid. We have discussed this significantly and we will be in dialogue with the trade unions, as well.

Vaccination is not just good to have at this time, but absolutely necessary in terms of managing Covid. Some countries have opted for legislation to make it mandatory, but we do not believe such a process would happen quickly enough for us. Instead, our approach would be a risk-based assessment. If a local service manager determined that the risk was such that people needed to have the vaccine, it would be deemed a risk factor for the staff to have the vaccine. Obviously, there will be minor exceptions, but that is the situation we would like to see.

Vaccination at this time is not just good to have, but absolutely necessary in terms of managing with Covid. Some countries have opted for legislation to make it mandatory, but such a process would not happen quickly enough for us. We would take the approach of a risk-based assessment, for example, a local service manager determining that the risk is such that people need to have the vaccine. There would obviously be minor exceptions, but that is what we would like to see. I have been clear that we need a significant ramping up of vaccinations this year.

What we are referring to for this year is not a winter plan. Rather, it is largely about managing our services with Covid through winter and into next year. It will not stop. We want to put in place approaches that are sustainable into 2021 beyond just February. I ask Ms O'Connor to touch on these approaches briefly.