=Record numbers of frontline NHS workers are refusing the flu jab,

It has been revealed that fewer than four in ten staff (37 per cent) received the vaccine, with rates plummeting to less than one in ten (8.8 per cent) in some areas.

Instead of wondering why medical staff are turning down the jab, patient groups are describing the level of uptake as ‘shocking’ and have accused the refuseniks of negligently fuelling sickness and putting vulnerable people at increased risk of death.

The Mail Online reports: The all-time low came as overwhelming demand for care forced over a dozen trusts to declare ‘critical incidents’ and Britain’s top doctor warned of ‘skyrocketing’ cases of flu.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the then national medical director of NHS England, urged patients to get the vaccine saying it could protect them and others from the virus.

Speaking last December, he said: ‘The flu vaccine is our best defence against winter viruses, and it also helps to reduce pressure on hospitals.’

But new figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats and shared exclusively with the Mail show most NHS staff failed to follow their employer’s own advice.

The proportion of healthcare workers, such as doctors and nurses, receiving a flu vaccine over winter fell from 64 per cent in 2016/17, when data was first collected, to just 37 per cent this year.

That is a record low and a fall of 26.7 percentage points. There has been a marked fall in vaccine uptake from the peak of 2020/21 where it hit 76 per cent.

Previous plans to make the vaccine compulsory were dropped amid a backlash from critics, who claimed the medical intervention should be down to personal choice.

But Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, which campaigns for elderly patients, said: ‘The NHS should make having the flu jab a condition of employment for frontline staff unless an individual has medical grounds for exemption.

‘The shockingly low rates of uptake show a certain arrogance – a total disregard for patient safety – and puts vulnerable people at increased risk of death.

‘Most NHS staff who catch flu will probably be OK but the people they are caring for may not survive if they pass it to them. It’s personal negligence.

‘Hospitals will have fared better over winter if more staff had bothered to get a flu vaccine, which we know is effective.’

The levels of flu vaccine uptake varied hugely between NHS Trusts, despite it being offered to frontline NHS staff for free nationwide.

The lowest uptake in the country was at Camden and Islington NHS Trust, where just 8.8 per cent of all healthcare workers had received a jab.

This was followed by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust on 9.5 per cent and then Central and North West London Trust on 15.5 per cent.

In total, 62 of the 184 NHS Trusts which had reported data for this winter saw less than a third of their staff take-up the flu vaccine, according to research by the House of Commons Library for the Liberal Democrats.

There have been some drastic falls in some NHS Trusts in the number of staff taking up the vaccine in recent years.