who should run the vaccination service

The powers that be wanted my CV for starters as a vaccinator. I retired 18 years ago so amazingly I have not got a CV any longer because I did not think I needed it to buy a litre of milk

My nearest centre for vaccinating is 20 minutes from a tube and there is nowhere to park so that was well thought out.

Kate1949 we will be contacted either by phone or by letter. Please do not forget that us oldies are computer illiterate.

I had confirmation a few weeks ago that I could receive my 2018 flu jab any time. It is obviously not only me who is wobbling off mentally because I even had my 2020 flu jab.

The NHS never closes for emergencies or urgents SueDonim?

We’ve heard nothing in my area of Scotland, nor has my 93yo mum. NHS staff only came back from a four day public holiday yesterday.

When I worked in the NHS we weren’t allowed to close for two consecutive days.

Id get Amazon to do it, everyone hates them already, but whatever you say they are super efficient at next day delivery!
They might just throw the needle at you as they run back to their van, but hey ho.and if you complain you get a nice photo of someone’s door step.

Honest to God, why are people saying that this is a shambles? I just posted on another thread, we are 5th in the world in the number of vaccines given per 100,000 people. 25% of over eighties already vaccinated in England. 1.3 million people all together, and now we've got a second vaccine going that will be easier to distribute. 140 million doses ordered covering the 2 approved vaccines.

So somebody at Boots didn't get an answer to their email? Probably means the person they sent it to is quite busy at the moment trying to work out ways to save people's lives as quickly as possible. Your local venue didn't get any deliveries? Well somebody else did. Seriously, this is the biggest vaccine rollout in history. Cut them some slack.

Local gps have grouped together and set up separate venue to do these vaccinations however they have had no vaccines available to them since last Weds!!! All that effort but no vaccines achieved for over a week.

Unfortunately as with so many things the press and politicians are quick to criticise the NHS. This is a huge task at a time when health services are pushed to the limit dealing with the effect of the pandemic already.

Each area is organising the vaccination programme independently, and because not all GP practices have capacity or wish to provide the enhanced service to vaccinate, each area has come up with different solutions. Where I live, three mass vaccination centres are delivering the vast majority of the vaccinations, with GP practices concentrating on the housebound and care homes initially.

It’s a massive logistical exercise, each centre will have 40 or more vaccinators working at a time, they have to be certificated to work as a vaccinator, and many of them have other roles as well so can only do a limited number of shifts. The NHS just does not have all the people needed to vaccinate available, and unfortunately neither does the army, as they are already helping in some hospitals, running their own facilities, and on deployments.

It’s the number of available vaccinators that is the issue, not the administration, security, venues, crowd management etc. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect people employed to vaccinate to provide evidence of their qualifications either - 20 pages of an application form is excessive, but it is important to make sure people are properly qualified, experienced and trained to do the task at hand surely?

My question is how do we get it? Do we sit and wait for the call? People are being told not to call their surgery. We passed a Vaccination Centre the other day. Do we go there off our own bat? We've heard nothing from our surgery and neither has our 93 year old neighbour, who has health issues and is with the same practice. We are 71 and 74. DH has prostate cancer and diabetes.

Army for logistics definitely, use pharmacies, trained forces personnel, Red Cross, St Johns Ambulance and others who have some medical training. I’m not sure if the Oxford vaccine needs a 15 minute observation period, if not, drive throughs with NI number logged as received.

EllanVannin

Whatever you do has to involve reams of paperwork and red-tape. Surely this bureaurocracy should have played out by now. It's unnecessary and frustrating as well as time-consuming.

But the Clinical Commissioning Groups have people trained to wade through red tape.

Whatever you do has to involve reams of paperwork and red-tape. Surely this bureaurocracy should have played out by now. It's unnecessary and frustrating as well as time-consuming.

My question above was a serious one. I have never seen my local GP practices as models of efficiency, but they do seem to have got their act together, using their own staff and co-opted members of the community to help with marshalling people on the day, etc.

The Clinical Commissioning Group announced a couple of weeks ago that GP practices had been organised into hubs, with groups of them pooling resources, which included having teams to go into care homes. I didn't actually believe they'd do what they said, but it appears they have. So why isn't everybody being organised like this? (I appreciate that Scotland, Wales and NI have different organisations.)

vegansrock

Well let’s give it to Dido Harding or the landlord of Matt Hancock’s pub then.

I rather fear it already has been!

Yes, Army medics could easily be called in.
Trust this country to even get this programme all wrong !

My call is the army too. They should have been involved in this whole debacle many months ago.

There's a pretty scathing article in the Mail this morning by David Blunkett. He's of the opinion that it should be the army.
He doesn't have a very high opinion of the pen pushers in the NHS. Neither do I.

The fact that the NHS knew about this so long ago, yet are still getting their act together is my problem.
Let me be clear, I am not criticising the doctors, nurses, support staff at all. They do a sterling job.

Has anyone mentioned chemists? Lots of them and eager to help

Why aren't other areas/groups of GP practices doing the same as mine?

They're working on Saturdays to do the vaccinations, when the surgeries aren't usually open, so presumably normal services aren't being affected.

Your work colleague is quite right about the lengthy application. I have a friend who is a retired nurse and she said the same thing to me. I think the NHS would have coped better had this recruitment drive been held months ago. How long have we known about the hopes of a vaccine? March last year, I think. In the 10 months since then we could have an army of people, vetted and poised with a needle, but no. Hence the mess we appear to have now.

Nadhim Zahawi MP is in charge of vaccine roll-out.

The local GP practices in my area, as part of the local CCG, appear to have done a fantastic job of vaccinating people. I'm incredibly relieved it wasn't outsourced.

Well let’s give it to Dido Harding or the landlord of Matt Hancock’s pub then.