FLU DEATHS AT RECORD HIGH AFTER SNP CUT JABS

SHOCKING figures show a record number of people died from flu in Scotland this year, with 2025 already setting the highest numbers of deaths in 45 years.

- Richard Elias

The grim toll is being blamed on the SNP's “mismanagement” of the NHS last winter, as well as the decision to axe free flu jabs for 50 to 65 year olds. There have been 463 deaths where flu was the underlying cause so far in 2025 and 567 where it was mentioned on the death certificate.

In both categories, this is already higher than the annual total for every full year going back to 1979 when the current records began.

The only comparable year in half a century was 1989, when a global flu epidemic infected a million people in the UK in December that year. It led to a nationwide expansion of the vaccination programme.

This year's death toll is being blamed on the ongoing chaos in the NHS, as well as the fateful decision on flu jabs. People aged 50 to 65 were added to the cohort across the UK during Covid, before being removed last year.

The "extraordinary" surge in flu deaths was already evident back in January, with Health Secretary Neil Gray, who was recently awarded a pay rise, urged to roll out flu jabs to the over-50s.