Flu jabs are likely to be rolled out earlier than usual this winter in a bid to ensure that any coronavirus ‘second peak’ doesn’t coincide with flu season.

Dr Virgina Pearson, Director of Public Health Devon, told the Devon County Council Health and Adult Care scrutiny committee on Tuesday that immunisation ahead of this winter would also likely see more people vaccinated.

A big concern for the NHS would be if there was a second wave of coronavirus that struck at the same time as an outbreak of influenza, particularly given the overlap in symptoms between the two diseases, and questions at the meeting were raised about how the NHS plans to cope with the ordinary winter pressures it faces.

But Dr Paul Johnson, Clinical Chair of NHS Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, said that if the social distancing measures were still in place this winter, he would expect that to actually help reduce the number of flu cases as close contacts between people would be less.

Asking questions, Cllr Nick Way said: “I hope that shortly we find an antidote to the horrible COVID-19 that the world is facing, but we do need to something about the flu this winter, and if we do get a spike and an increase in problems with covid, how will we deal with ordinary flu and immunisation? We definitely need some sort of program to persuade people to get immunised.”

In response, Dr Johnson said that while it was possible there could be a second peak that coincided with winter flu, there was no evidence at the moment of any increase in cases happening, with all the measures currently heading in the right direction.

He added: “It would be an added complicated if covid coexisted with flu due to the overlap of symptoms, but we do have the Nightingale Hospital in Exeter to cope if we did. But the social distancing measures will have a benefit on the decreasing number of flu cases that we see.”

Dr Pearson added: “We will probably start the immunisation strategy earlier than usual, maybe by about two months and to increase the people it covers and lower the age limit to become eligible.”

Exeter’s new Nightingale Hospital is still being built in Sowton with it set to open, if needed, in July, although the number of patients in hospital with coronavirus on Tuesday in Devon could be counted on one hand, with no patients in Derriford Hospital and none in Devon on a ventilator.