I have today received a letter from Lloyds Pharmacy offering me a FREE flu jab. Free? Well not quite, as Lloyds will be paid by the NHS (and thus by my and your contributions) and is part of the creeping privatisation of our NHS.
Historically, these injections have been provided by our GPs as part of their day-to-day service to the community. They too are paid by the NHS for giving the jabs but the money is recycled, subsidising their other services which they provide as part of their National Health contract and doesn’t just disappear into the bank account of a faceless, unaccountable, multi-national company.
Did you know that your local GP has to purchase in advance, on the open market, the flu jabs for the season? They do this based on the make-up of their patients and historic patterns of demand. The jabs are not on a ‘use or return basis’, so any unused jabs as a result of patients using other providers are wasted, causing a financial loss to the practice as well as a loss of income, making less money available for subsidising their other services. Don’t forget also that your GP will probably know you and your health problems and has your medical records to hand.
I declare an interest as my daughter is an ordinary GP (in her surgery or at NHS meetings 7am to 9 pm four days a week, on her computer or on the phone at home the other three days) but I know the battle beginning to rage between funding for the NHS and commercial enterprises. If you truly value our NHS and your surgery, please accept and have your 'flu jabs at your surgery - a simple way to help sustain them.
Lloyds is a German company, Celesio, which in turn is owned by a huge American corporation, McKesson Corp. Incidentally, Boots is now owned by Walgrens, another huge American company, so every time you accept a vaccination at anywhere but your local GP's surgery, you are putting a nail into their coffin and boosting an overseas large commercial organisation.
These large US based conglomerates are playing on the vulnerability of the NHS at the moment; ‘pay extra for immediate treatment’, offering to keep your repeat prescription records and automatically dispensing your prescriptions instead of you using your local pharmacy. By doing so you are paving the way for us to be told that we like and are happy with the 'new normal' so don't need the NHS.
Another example of creeping privatisation is that of ear wax removal which used to be undertaken at your local GP surgery. The Government has removed it from their treatment list so it’s a quick £30 - £50 elsewhere. Where will it end?
Having your ‘flu jab at your local surgery when invited to do so is a simple way to help yourself and your surgery.
Unless we support our local surgeries and chemists shops, I suggest that we are on a slippery downward path to privatisation.
It would cause the flu programme massive logistical problems if everybody wanted to delay getting their vaccination until November though maddyone. The programme starts in September so that everybody who is eligible can be offered it before Christmas. It offers protection for at least six months, probably longer.
Jaxjacky I’ve had an invitation to go for a flu jab too, but it came from the pharmacy that supplies our medicines. I will wait for the text from my GP, but in any case it is far too early to go for a flu jab yet. My son in law, also a GP, told me some years ago to delay getting my flu jab till October or even November, because the efficacy is best for three months after the jab, which will give the required protection during Dec, Jan, and Feb, which just happens to be when flu is most active. I normally delay until about early November, then two weeks for immunity to develop, after which we’re into flu season.
I have never had a flu jab administered by anyone except a GP or a practice nurse and only once did a GP actually give the vaccine to me. That particular year there was a shortage of vaccines and my practice couldn’t get any more. My daughter arrived at my house at about 7.00pm after she finished her evening surgery. She brought a vaccine with her and administered it then. She said I particularly needed the vaccine because I have asthma, and flu could be very dangerous to me. She gave me exactly the same warning about Covid. She was right, I was seriously ill with Covid and hospitalised.
The blood pressure machines are so simple to use, and often recommended by doctors as patients can monitor their own blood pressure at home, and email the results in once a year as part of the BP review, or alert the doctor if the readings are particularly high. I don’t believe anyone who can reasonably competently use the internet would be unable to use a blood pressure machine, nor do I understand why anyone would not want to be proactive in monitoring their own blood pressure when it is so easy. GPs have been trained for many years to encourage patients to be involved in their health and care.
5 minutes for a flu jab appointment at the GP surgery?
You must be joking, they are booked in one every minute at ours!
Jaxjacky
maddyone my GP did my flu jab last year. I’ve got my invitation to book for this year.
Our surgery is generally excellent.
Pre-Covid I had nothing but praise for my GP practice, have been with them for 50 years (3 GP’s over that time)
I feel let down as do many others using the same practice (AC and friends)
maddyone my GP did my flu jab last year. I’ve got my invitation to book for this year.
Our surgery is generally excellent.
maddyone
GrannyGravy you may be proactive regarding your health, but as I said, there is absolutely no need for your GP to take your blood pressure. It is easy to do it yourself, as many of us do. Asthma reviews are not done by doctors either, practice nurses do them. I have an asthma review on Wednesday this week. I haven’t had one since before Covid. My review is by telephone. Any ongoing asthma problem might need to be seen by the doctor or the asthma nurse. Asthma nurses are extremely highly trained and are often more aware than the doctors, because they go regularly to asthma training courses, which doctors do sometimes but not as often as they have many other things to be up to speed on.
My asthma review was indeed done over the phone by one of the practice nurses.
My issue is asking me to take my blood pressure over the next couple of days and we will ring you for the numbers I have no expertise in this, as they have no expertise in my occupation.
The population hasn’t increased in our postcode, our vaccination centres (two) are mainly out of surgery hours and vaccines are not given by GP’s but trained volunteers.
The practice nurses are not having face to face consultations, the GP’s are not having face to face consultations. Sometimes it is only when you see a health care professional face to face that it’s possible to a open up about issues/concerns that are bothering you.
I have been crunching numbers again.
We have a UK population of 67 million.
Approximately 25% are age 50 or over and eligible for the flu vaccine. Say 17 milliion.
For the 2020/21 season, take up of the flu vaccine was high at 75%. Say 13 million people.
Let’s say take up will be the same for 2021/22, that everyone requests it be done at a GP surgery and that each vaccine needs an appointment time of five minutes. That’s 65 million minutes - roughly a million hours of GP practice nurse time.
I believe band five and six nurse are paid between £26000 and £41000 a year. If we add in employers costs; NIC, pensions, sick and maternity pay, let’s say it costs on average £35000 in total to pay a practice nurse for a 40 hour week
1,000,000 hours / 40 = 25,000 nurses * £35000 = £875 million in staff costs to vaccinate 13 million people.
Last season, pharmacies delivered 2.7 million flu jabs. That’s only 20% of the 13 million administered. At say 5 minutes per appointment, that equated to a saving of 225,000 hours of GP practice nurse time or 5625 nurses working full time delivering vaccinations at a staffing cost of £200 million.
For 2021/22, pharmacies will be paid £9.58 per vaccine delivered which, if the number of vaccines delivered is similar to 2020/21, 2.7 million vaccines will earn them £26 million from which they must pay their own staff costs.
If anyone spots errors in these numbers or finds fault in my reasoning, please do let me know.
I understand all your reasoning, Candelle but at a time when NHS services are stretched to the limit and struggling to catch up with the backlog of work caused by Covid shutdowns and with the 2021/22 flu vaccination programme due to start in September, paying 26 million to allow the equivalent of 5625 full-time nurses to get on with other work seems a bargain to me.
Surgeries will still be vaccinating 80% of those eligible.
I see pharmacies as essential supplementary and indeed backup service to the NHS. Their contribution to healthcare is vital, never more so than in the last eighteen months. Yes, the big chains are part of international companies not unlike many of our essential energy, transport and utility networks which were once public companies. I would much rather all of these services be publicly-owned and run but unless we have a sea change of political allegiance in the UK, it isn’t going to happen.
GrannyGravy you may be proactive regarding your health, but as I said, there is absolutely no need for your GP to take your blood pressure. It is easy to do it yourself, as many of us do. Asthma reviews are not done by doctors either, practice nurses do them. I have an asthma review on Wednesday this week. I haven’t had one since before Covid. My review is by telephone. Any ongoing asthma problem might need to be seen by the doctor or the asthma nurse. Asthma nurses are extremely highly trained and are often more aware than the doctors, because they go regularly to asthma training courses, which doctors do sometimes but not as often as they have many other things to be up to speed on.
maddyone
GrannyGravy, I realise it’s not cost in your case, in some others it may be. However it is not difficult to take your own blood pressure using one of these extremely simple machines. You certainly do not need to be a doctor to do this, and normally the one of the practice nurses will do this very simple check if required. In fact in many surgeries across the land the care assistants are the ones who do the blood pressure checks, this includes my own surgery. Unfortunately with insufficient GPs in the country, if we want to keep this valuable service, we need to be proactive with our healthcare. The skill of a doctor is not needed to take blood pressure, nor even the skill of a nurse. We are responsible for keeping ourselves healthy and checking our blood pressure as we age should be part of this. I’ve checked mine today by the way. I check it every week. I know the acceptable range for my age and I would request a phone consultation if my blood pressure was to become higher than acceptable for two or three weeks.
I am extremely proactive regarding my healthcare, I have severe asthma which needs to be consistently monitored. I have not had a face-to-face appointment with my GP for 22 months.
I also have a hernia, which will need a major operation in the near future, my assessment for that every six months is also by phone.
I totally appreciate that GP’s are busy however, I have stayed at home to protect the NHS now it’s time they protected/treated me…
I find it very difficult to take my own blood pressure! I had to take it for several 8 day cycles recently while my blood pressure tablets were being adjusted as my bp was sky high when the nurse checked it at my flu jab. It was so high the gp told me over the phone that if it went any higher I should phone 999!
I cannot get the cuff on straight with only one hand even though I bought a second one for fat arms. It twists up then I end up using my teeth to try to pull it around my arm! I ended up buying a new one from the pharmacy which goes around the wrist but I’m not sure it is as accurate.
I’m sure my bp was raised considerably with the difficulty I had getting a phone consultation with the gp when he asked me to. I had to complain to the practice manager on one occasion as I had tried on three consecutive days and not been lucky in the “appointment lottery”.
We have a blood pressure monitor. Over the last couple of years I’ve had to check my blood pressure for a variety of reasons. It’s easy. I set up a chart and record the results for a week and then email it to my GP.
GrannyGravy, I realise it’s not cost in your case, in some others it may be. However it is not difficult to take your own blood pressure using one of these extremely simple machines. You certainly do not need to be a doctor to do this, and normally the one of the practice nurses will do this very simple check if required. In fact in many surgeries across the land the care assistants are the ones who do the blood pressure checks, this includes my own surgery. Unfortunately with insufficient GPs in the country, if we want to keep this valuable service, we need to be proactive with our healthcare. The skill of a doctor is not needed to take blood pressure, nor even the skill of a nurse. We are responsible for keeping ourselves healthy and checking our blood pressure as we age should be part of this. I’ve checked mine today by the way. I check it every week. I know the acceptable range for my age and I would request a phone consultation if my blood pressure was to become higher than acceptable for two or three weeks.
I think the NHS has had creeping privatisation coming in for quite a while now. Blair was an advocate
By 2008 we could have as much as 40% of acute operations done in the private sector being done under the NHS banner," he told health bosses.
www.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/16/health.politics
maddyone
GrannyGravy why don’t you buy a blood pressure machine and email the results in? Doctors get a more accurate picture if you do your blood pressure daily for a week anyway, rather than just one isolated reading. We’ve had a blood pressure machine for years, they’re not very expensive.
It is not the cost, it’s the fact that I am not a health care professional. Pre-Covid I would go into the surgery every six months for an overall assessment.
A phone consultation is not satisfactory for some conditions..
GrannyGravy why don’t you buy a blood pressure machine and email the results in? Doctors get a more accurate picture if you do your blood pressure daily for a week anyway, rather than just one isolated reading. We’ve had a blood pressure machine for years, they’re not very expensive.
JaneJudge
you can buy blood pressure monitors
]]
BUt I do know what you mean. We are allowed to go in and use the one in the medical centre though that you put your arm in
Yes JaneJudge but like you said that is not the point.
you can buy blood pressure monitors
loads here, some quite cheap
BUt I do know what you mean. We are allowed to go in and use the one in the medical centre though that you put your arm in
Also it is a more pleasant experience at the pharmacy. DH and I go in to a little room together, the pharmacist, although efficient and not wasting time, makes you feel as though you are not an interruption to her day, although I’m sure she has plenty of other work to do.
The GP experience is nothing like that, herded together, shuffle in, jab, out, every minute or so.
maddyone
Thank you for the information Candelle. I already knew this from my daughter who is also a GP (now sadly absent from the UK due to the stress of working in the NHS during Covid, she’s one of the ones who were hiding behind closed doors just like all the ones various Gransnetters complained about, and so she’s fled to New Zealand to work there, where sadly Covid has now caught up with her again) but she told me years ago that I should always get my flu jab at the GP surgery because the surgery is paid for every jab it does. If you get your jab at the pharmacist ‘because it’s so convenient’ you are indeed sleep walking into the loss of our NHS as we know it. I always get my jab at my GP surgery, which is further away than the pharmacy, because I value our GP service.
I value our GP services…
I had a phone check up today for an ongoing illness, I was asked what my blood pressure was, I replied I had no idea and did not have a blood pressure monitor. Their response could I find somewhere to have it taken during the week and they would ring me on Friday to find out the readings, I shouldn’t try to ring results in ?
I totally appreciate GP’s are busy but really?
I think pharmacies like Boots and LLoyds will have to start paying their staff better all these extra services they are having to give
Incidentally, GPs do not do the vaccinations, the practice nurses do them, and even during Covid last year, the service provided was quick and efficient. I made an appointment by telephone (it could be done online) and turned up at the correct time, in and out in a few minutes. Excellent service.
Thank you for the information Candelle. I already knew this from my daughter who is also a GP (now sadly absent from the UK due to the stress of working in the NHS during Covid, she’s one of the ones who were hiding behind closed doors just like all the ones various Gransnetters complained about, and so she’s fled to New Zealand to work there, where sadly Covid has now caught up with her again) but she told me years ago that I should always get my flu jab at the GP surgery because the surgery is paid for every jab it does. If you get your jab at the pharmacist ‘because it’s so convenient’ you are indeed sleep walking into the loss of our NHS as we know it. I always get my jab at my GP surgery, which is further away than the pharmacy, because I value our GP service.
GrannyGravy13
PippaZ
I have usually had my vaccination in a large (and airy) Boots for the past few years. I used to get my blood taken for testing at Sainsbury's and had my flu vaccine there one year because I was there anyway. I agree with flaxwoven, they are very efficient and very customer orientated - which cannot always be said for doctor's surgeries.
The NHS has been going for since 1948 and it has made a huge difference to the health of the nation. I most certainly don't want it privatised by I do think we could do with a revised structure including Pharmacies, Opticians, etc., laid out and telling us where the best place is for whatever.Blimey I agree with all aspects of your post ?
But that's lovely. It had to happen one day 
Pharmacies have been offering the flu vaccine since 2013, this isn’t a new initiative. It was set up to improve patient choice and accessibility. Pharmacies are contracted to the NHS to provide the vaccines exactly the same way as GP practices are. If you don’t want to support large pharmacy chains that’s your choice, get your vaccine elsewhere.
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