FLU vaccines saved the lives of pensioners this winter with the death rate of elderly folk falling, say health bosses covering Bromsgrove.
In Worcestershire, 70 per cent of those at risk from the effects of flu were immunised this year -- a higher rate than the national average.
Together with the generally mild winter this led to the death rate of elderly people in residential care dropping from more than ten a week last year to eight a week during 2001.
Although hospitals were busy with a peak number of beds occupied at one point, they coped with help from Worcestershire County Council's social services department and the public.
Worcestershire NHS Health Authority chief executive Pat Archer-Jones said: "Our plans to prepare for the pressures which winter always brings were well organised and the most successful for years."
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