OXFORD University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the county's hospitals, has immunised more than 7,000 of its staff against flu.The programme, which the trust says is the most successful in its history, has seen 63 per cent of frontline staff now immunised.

Chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael said: “We are aiming for a staff vaccine uptake rate that is above the 75 per cent target, and we think our patients deserve to know how close we are getting to achieving that ambition.”

Achieving a high uptake of immunisation will release extra funding from the Government for the OUH Trust.