Doctors and politicians clashed this week over whether influenza was being made the scapegoat for this year's winter problems in the NHS. The health secretary, Alan Milburn, warned that Britain could be heading for the worst flu epidemic in 10 years after a fourfold increase in reported cases since December.
But figures collected by the Royal College of General Practitioners show that GP consultations for “influenza and influenza-like illness” in England and Wales were only 144 per 100000 population for the week ending 2 January—well within the range for a normal winter.
Dr Douglas Fleming, director of the college's research unit in Birmingham, where the figures are collated, said that provisional figures suggested that the consultation rate had since increased by 30% to around 200 per 100000—still only half that of the classic definition of an epidemic.
He blamed the combination of flu with bronchitis among elderly people and reduced flexibility over the use of hospital beds for the crisis in the NHS.
Professor Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for England, said that the real flu rate might be 300 per 100000 because many more people were treating themselves rather than consult a GP following the launch of the NHS Direct helpline.
Conservative health spokesman Philip Hammond accused the government of exaggerating the extent of the flu outbreak to “justify their own pathetic unpreparedness for winter illness.”
Leading members of the BMA said that the word epidemic was being used to some extent as an excuse to justify the difficulties facing the NHS, which was always under pressure because there were too few beds, doctors, and nurses.
The vaccine being used this year is designed to protect against the circulating Sydney strain, but Dr Fleming said that the uptake even among at risk groups was probably only around 60
Figure.
CHRIS ISON/PA
One of England's many flu victims receives a house call from his GP