Is vaccination really going to plan?

[PeterM, Southwell]

I heard today on our local news that less than 50% of over 80's have been vaccinated in our county compared to others where almost 90% have had the jab. In spite of this a friend in his 70s had his letter today. However, when he tried to book his vaccination he was offered one at Leeds, over 70 miles away, or Boston, nearly 50 miles away. My daughter, a nurse, tells me vaccine is regularly being thrown away because insufficient people are turning up. Another disorganised cock up?

[mike, lanarkshire]

It would appear it’s erratic, including Scotland. My 82 year old mother in law received hers yesterday. She was advised there were only 100 doses available - no more. Ruth Davidson asked our FM about supply and wastage yesterday but it’s just “bluff and bluster” from her. There’s clearly an issue in the supply chain. I hope it is resolved soon as the Northern Ireland situation (potential lockdown to 5 March) is very worrying. The sooner the over 80’s / 70’s get vaccinated, the better. It’s just going to take time due to the vast numbers involved

[andyn, Bucks]

Seems to be going well in NE and Yorkshire. Actually too well, they are now having their supply limited so others can catch up

[cruisewidower, pontefract]

I heard today on our local news that less than 50% of over 80's have been vaccinated in our county compared to others where almost 90% have had the jab. In spite of this a friend in his 70s had his letter today. However, when he tried to book his vaccination he was offered one at Leeds, over 70 miles away, or Boston, nearly 50 miles away. My daughter, a nurse, tells me vaccine is regularly being thrown away because insufficient people are turning up. Another disorganised cock up?

Hi Peter...We had our 1st Pfizer vaccination on 23/12/20 and just missed out on our follow up 21 days later by about 3 days, much to our disappointment. Surely it's not beyond the skill level of some NHS management person to organise a "Standby list" of contacts in case of cancellations whereby a phone call. would produce a replacement patient. We are ready and able to jump in the car and turn up at any vaccination centre within a 1 hour ride...At around £25/dose for Pfizer the economics alone suggest viability. Regards Stan .

[PeterM, Southwell]

Hi Peter...We had our 1st Pfizer vaccination on 23/12/20 and just missed out on our follow up 21 days later by about 3 days, much to our disappointment. Surely it's not beyond the skill level of some NHS management person to organise a "Standby list" of contacts in case of cancellations whereby a phone call. would produce a replacement patient. We are ready and able to jump in the car and turn up at any vaccination centre within a 1 hour ride...At around £25/dose for Pfizer the economics alone suggest viability. Regards Stan .

My daughter had her first dose in December too. She was originally going to have the second dose on 15th Jan, but this has now been put back to 26th Feb. As she nurses covid patients, surely she and her colleagues could get their second dose rather than it being thrown away, particularly as they're already on the premises. They do apparently ring round, but still can't get enough people to avoid wasting some doses. Like you, if someone called me I'd be there like a shot.

[tuggy, warminster]

No it is NOT .I acording to the N.H,S website i i shoud have had my vacination 2 weeks ago .No good trying to get any information from my Surgery they are not allpwed to give out any information on the matter, I am not alone in my town in being kept in the dark as i know of a 93 yre old woman in the samr sugery that also has not had hers and she also can not get any information of what is going on

[annie, Glasgow]

Hi Peter...We had our 1st Pfizer vaccination on 23/12/20 and just missed out on our follow up 21 days later by about 3 days, much to our disappointment. Surely it's not beyond the skill level of some NHS management person to organise a "Standby list" of contacts in case of cancellations whereby a phone call. would produce a replacement patient. We are ready and able to jump in the car and turn up at any vaccination centre within a 1 hour ride...At around £25/dose for Pfizer the economics alone suggest viability. Regards Stan .

NHS waste medicine - nothing new is it?? A brother's niece, my marriage, is a pharmacist in a large London hospital and you wouldn't believe the wastage.

There are definitely issues in the supply chain - heck I knew of them in November.

I understand in Israel they used social media to alert people to short notice vaccine appointments - it worked. In DC, they used a tannoy system in one store - it worked.

Annie

[JohnR, Chippenham]

I had a phone call from my rural surgery on Jan 12th and my Pfizer jab 2 days later. My wife couldn’t make the 14th. She had a call yesterday the 21st and an appointment for her jab tomorrow the 23rd.

Our surgery in a village 4 miles away is linked with a surgery in country town a further 14 miles away, due probably to the quantities and facilities required to administer the Pfizer vaccine. Our GP practise head, nurse, dispensary assistant and a student dealing with the admin. were in attendance in one part of the building seeing to their patients whilst another part of the building was being used by another surgery and it’s patients. There were a number of presumably volunteers shepherding cars and people through the process and it all went extremely smoothly. From arrival to departure, including the 15 minutes recovery period, was less than 30 minutes.

In such a mammoth exercise it is not surprising some have got their act together and are pushing forward faster and more efficiently than others. It is also not surprising if a handful slip between the cracks. We are relying on quite junior staff, your neighbours records administrator wife and my sisters phlebotomist daughter say, working flat out on new procedures and as far as I can see they are all doing a superb job.

As always it is easy to carp on from the sidelines with no understanding of the logistics and resources required but judging from the progress of other countries this is a great success story for Britain with over 5 million older people already vaccinated.

[JohnR, Chippenham]

I heard today on our local news that less than 50% of over 80's have been vaccinated in our county compared to others where almost 90% have had the jab. In spite of this a friend in his 70s had his letter today. However, when he tried to book his vaccination he was offered one at Leeds, over 70 miles away, or Boston, nearly 50 miles away. My daughter, a nurse, tells me vaccine is regularly being thrown away because insufficient people are turning up. Another disorganised cock up?

No shows are a perennial problem for all parts of the NHS.

With regard to throwing away vaccines I imagine any location administering the vaccine will not know how many, if any, doses they will have surplus until almost the end of the day. By then may not be easy to persuade staff to do another hour or more whilst someone rings round to find anyone who hasn’t already got an appointment for a later date and who is willing and able to drop everything and travel to the location. The staff are human like the rest of us and all have husbands, wives, children, parents, personal matters etc. to attend to.

[JohnR, Chippenham]

I heard today on our local news that less than 50% of over 80's have been vaccinated in our county compared to others where almost 90% have had the jab. In spite of this a friend in his 70s had his letter today. However, when he tried to book his vaccination he was offered one at Leeds, over 70 miles away, or Boston, nearly 50 miles away. My daughter, a nurse, tells me vaccine is regularly being thrown away because insufficient people are turning up. Another disorganised cock up?

I also had a letter, a couple of days after I had actually had my jab, and going through the steps online to see for my wife was offered appointments at a number of the major vaccination centres up to 70+ miles away. The letter also said you could wait to be contacted by your local surgery for an appointment nearer home. This is what my wife did and fortunately was called by our surgery the next day and offered an appointment closer to home.

[Topdeck, London]

There does seem to be a very mixed level of competence at the local level.


Some have planned for no shows with a reserve call list to get people in quickly.

The no shows are not all at the end of the day so you can start calling as soon as the first person does not turn up.

Most hubs will have plenty of people they can call that are in the first 4 cohorts if they have access to a list, local GP should have that if they can't access national.
That's alongside large groups that could be contacted quickly like a nearby hospital staff...


Then we have the issue with reports PHE stopping care home vaccinations if there is a covid case.

There will be supply issues for some that have capacity but no vaccine.


We walked past one hub near us yesterday and there was no activity looked shut.

We also have another in the centre of town don't know how busy that one is, very handy for people as it is near the bus station and loads of parking(paid) not being used as most shops are shut.


What is shocking is we have had months to put a national infrastructure in place to manage the whole population yet seem to be making it up now.



Drug waste is a problem because once dispensed it cannot be put back into the system even if unused.
Major problem when patients get dose changes, often requires new prescription and old issued product is waste.

[Topdeck, London]

There is also the squeezing extra doses,Pfizer vials are dispensed as 5 doses so that will probably be the scheduled attendance.
There are 6/7 doses so you know quite early in a session if you are going to have surplus and can start pulling in extras.

[Moonraker, Royal Wootton Bassett]

My wife had her jab on Wednesday. She was phoned by our surgery on Saturday and offered the appointment. At that point she could have declined so no shows are difficult to understand under that system. The hub was 10 miles away since neither of our local surgeries can deep freeze the Pfizer vaccine. It was all very efficient, no problems at all. There has been extensive coverage of the roll out in the local press and on radio and TV and no shows have not been raised as an issue. With regard to hubs appearing to be closed, one being used in nearby Swindon is in the railway museum but it is operational only two days a week but that is by design, nothing to do with supply issues.

[carol, welwyn garden city]

I think my mum was very lucky, she had a letter, I made the appointment for her, at her local Doctors 5 mins walk from her house, and the follow up 3 weeks later.


My niece a trainee paramedic has been offered her first vaccine, but is ill at the moment (not the virus) so will have it when she goes back, and my son who works in a hospital, but not front line has had his first dose, they did it where he worked.

At the surgery where my mum had hers, they were vaccinating quicker, than they had room to seat people for the 15 minutes. (They had a large marquee out the back)

Let's just hope it goes from strength to strength and we are all done soon .................................................. ...................Carol

[Delboy, Essex]

I think my mum was very lucky, she had a letter, I made the appointment for her, at her local Doctors 5 mins walk from her house, and the follow up 3 weeks later.


My niece a trainee paramedic has been offered her first vaccine, but is ill at the moment (not the virus) so will have it when she goes back, and my son who works in a hospital, but not front line has had his first dose, they did it where he worked.

At the surgery where my mum had hers, they were vaccinating quicker, than they had room to seat people for the 15 minutes. (They had a large marquee out the back)

Let's just hope it goes from strength to strength and we are all done soon .................................................. ...................Carol

2nd attempt first unapproved after amendment.

I also think I was very lucky being amongst the first to receive the vaccine, as my daughter said I had mine before the queen, no idea why, first jab 15/12/20 second jab 05/01/21.

Other than age 81 early next month, no mobility issues, the only medication I take is 2 tablets for high blood pressure which seem to be keeping it down, plus a statin for cholesterol and a low dose aspirin

Our vaccination centre Local Hospice day centre in our town centre,10 minute drive along seafront or easy access via public transport, it was all very efficient, 2nd jab was straight in no waiting other than the 15 minutes after the jab, which took place in a large hall.

My wife who is in her mid seventies no news on her jab yet, but had she been with me when I had mine she could also have had hers, it was late in the day and they were offering jabs to people who had accompanied others, due to no shows.