People in their seventies in the local area are being urged to protect themselves against shingles with a free vaccine.

Local GP practices are offering patients the vaccination as part of the NHS shingles immunisation campaign for 2017/18.

By the end of June 2017, only half of all eligible patients in Bath, Gloucestershire, Swindon and Wiltshire had been vaccinated against shingles and the NHS is encouraging everyone who is offered the vaccine to take it up.

The shingles vaccination significantly reduces the nerve pain that occurs during the infection. But more importantly, it also significantly reduces the chance of developing the lasting, chronic pain (post herpetic neuralgia) that occurs at the site of a previous attack of shingles.

The shingles vaccine is offered to patients aged seventy and seventy-eight years. In addition, patients who were eligible for immunisation in the first three years of the programme (which began on 1st September 2013) but have not yet been vaccinated against shingles remain eligible until their 80th birthday. These are: patients in their 70s who were born after 1st September 1942 and have not yet had the vaccine, and patients aged 79-years-old who have missed out on the vaccine.