SOMETIMES ideas are so simple you wonder why they have not been in place before.

Today we report on NHS Oxfordshire’s expansion of last year’s flu vaccination pilot that offers pregnant women the jab while they are already at the John Radcliffe and Horton hospitals for their scans.

The flu vaccination is essential for almost everyone, but often health authorities trying to promote it come up against that bane of modern life: ‘I just don’t have the time to organise it.’

With these types of programmes and the inability of many of us to organise our time to accommodate them, medics do literally have to bring the vaccination to the patient.

And with it being so critical for pregnant women, identifying when they will be at hospital is brilliant.

NHS Oxfordshire, charged by the World Health Organisation with doubling the number of women vaccinated during their pregnancies this year, literally could not do more to make this an effective programme. Hopefully it will motivate the rest of us to ensure we get the vaccination.