[Closed] The vaccination programme...wanna know how DAFT it can be....

Who sent it?

That is crazy Dr P. Thanks for everything you are all doing though, you are making a massive difference.

What area are you covering DrP - post up and I'm sure you'll get a few volunteers to take any last minute doses that would otherwise be binned.

Thank you DrP and everyone else who is doing their best with this programme.

Here in my bit of Manchester we’ve vaccine for the next couple of days, after that we’ve no info on when we’ll be getting more

GPs and the like get zero bashing from here mate. No front line NHS staff get less than my 100% admiration.

Regarding your point about extra vaccines at no notice, I think that this will be one of many such stories...

My wifes friend who works in a local authority health and social care partnership, office based, wfh since March 20, and is 42 with no health issues, got her first shot yesterday.

I assumed it was due to something like this, as my 96 year old neighbour hasn't had hers yet.

What area are you covering DrP – post up and I’m sure you’ll get a few volunteers to take any last minute doses that would otherwise be binned.

Got any spare?

I pay good price!

DrP roaming the local High Street the day after tomorrow...

Thanks for all your efforts.

Here in my bit of Manchester we’ve vaccine for the next couple of days, after that we’ve no info on when we’ll be getting more

I think we were under the impression we'd get one box (which was planned for), and that was it.

The current issue is: the site that had the 3 boxes delivered is actually fully booked up now.. and i believe technically, we aren't allowed to move the vaccines once they are delivered to a single site!!!
Thus, we really need to be
a)allowed to move the vaccine to the other sites
b)get staff to deliver it
c)get patients in!!

Let's see!!

DrP

Stealth ad - reported 🙂

Funnily enough..it was MY area that had the scandal of the £5k being offered!!!

searches for the link... makes a few phone calls... 😉

DrP

I can’t help thinking that even though this is a pain for you, will cause issues and arguments down the line I think that the news that we have more vaccines than we can get out to people is MILES better than not having enough.
Obviously they may be better used elsewhere but having a surplus is a good thing right now.

WOW, That's mad.
I'm guessing another site somewhere else in the country is wondering where their two cases are?

Just second dose everyone on their first visit over the next 72hrs.

One left arm, one right, job jobbed. I mean if we can move the second dose out by weeks one way, why joy the other eh?

we have more vaccines than we can get out to people

If only that were the case. Last I heard from our local GP partnership was that on Monday they expected to get 400 doses to vaccinate 1500 over 80s. From the silence since I suspect that's all they got. So if you're anywhere near Bucks there's over a thousand people who could use any spare doses!

My wifes friend who works in a local authority health and social care partnership, office based, wfh since March 20, and is 42 with no health issues, got her first shot yesterday.

in NHS lothian there is a staff booking line. They will accept any staff but there is guidance on the intranet where the phone number is posted asking that staff give priority to the staff facing actual significant risk. Ie red wards, A&E AMU etc. Thus the person you mention has breached rule number 1 assuming the same guidence. this is why I held back a month. I am getting mine today tho and my parents have not had theirs yet.

DrP

My guess is that this is exactly as you suspect - its a political move so Johnson and co can say " we have delivered the vaccines" and blame lack of giving them on GPs

Madness! Keep at it DrP, top work.

How to get 1400 folk immediately?? Pop-up at Stanmer Park?. It's a sunny day and nice looking weekend. Got to be thousands of older folk going for a walk or shredding e-bikes 😉

Exactly the same story relayed to me by doctors at London hospitals

They had to bin a load, quite a few random flatmates & family members of staff got it, but nothing could be done about a lot of them, as it was last thing on a Friday

My wife (NHS Scotland)  received a work email yesterday with instructions to click on a website link and book a vaccination appointment for next week. The link didn't work (DNS not resolved).

She has just received a work email  (from the same person that sent out yesterdays) that says that she should ignore that and will be contacted individually regarding a booking.

I know that everyone is working hard to get through this but there's been months to prepare for it.

THough I normally like to take a leading role in things, I'll admit that my current involvement in delivering the vaccine is minimal, and is mainly the odd day here and there (still working..single parent..homeschooling etc etc) - but there's a group of GPs and practice managers locally who are REALLY doing us all proud! I shall pass on your kind words to them!

DrP

Thus the person you mention has breached rule number 1 assuming the same guidence

Tbf to her, and I generally ain't, she's a tosser, she works for the council not a NHS trust, and was told by her managers to get it done.

I know that everyone is working hard to get through this but there’s been months to prepare for it.

Perhaps they've known this was coming for months but I doubt they've had the actual time between doing their normal job and also vaccinating people 24/7.

My wife (GP) was vaccinated on Monday and on Tuesday was asked to vaccinate other people in her free time. The idea of spending 8 hours in a room with a load of potentially infected people 3 weeks before her vaccine kicks in didn't exactly have her jumping at the opportunity. She still did it though.

Turns out DrP is a real doctor! Like Dr Foster from the telly.

I wondered if he was more like Dr Dre, or maybe even one of those PhD types from university.

Big up DrP and all the vaccinators. Keep pumpin! The odd logistical **** up is inevitable given the scale of this and I'm getting the vibe that the vaccination programme is broadly a success so far (although I have nothing to do with it - purely anecdotal).

Johnson and his lackeys can blame whomever they want but history will tell that they were asleep at the wheel.

I think they might be mine;

I had a message from Hermes that my 2 parcels had been delivered, but there were no footprints in the snow and I was looking out of the window all day. This happened two days in a row.

i believe technically, we aren’t allowed to move the vaccines once they are delivered to a single site!!!

If they're defrosted it would be tricky to move them and keep within the storage regulations - in this respect the AZ vaccine is somewhat better.
Any idea how they're delivered Dr P - is each vial of vaccine packed with the diluent or do you get a box of vaccine and a box of diluent?

Is this still available?

I reckon my 75 year old mum and dad would drive for a long long time to get a dose, given so far their gp surgery has only vaccinated 100 people so far and it looks like they wont get theirs for month's! so if that's possible let me know and I'll send then along!

Johnson and his lackeys can blame whomever they want but history will tell that they were asleep at the wheel.

Is that why the UK is ahead of nearly every other country in vaccines delivered?

The idea of spending 8 hours in a room with a load of potentially infected people 3 weeks before her vaccine kicks in didn’t exactly have her jumping at the opportunity. She still did it though

Good for her - and the 1000's of volunteers who are doing exactly the same.

Perhaps they’ve known this was coming for months but I doubt they’ve had the actual time between doing their normal job and also vaccinating people 24/7

Mere days before the vaccine rollout was actually started we were speculating whether the Army were going to do it, Hospitals? GP surgeries? G4S and Serco? Who the **** knows. It would have taken a great lot of foresight for a GP practice manager to start devoting their time to a generating a plan when the government doesn't seem to have one.

Is that why the UK is ahead of nearly every other country in vaccines delivered?

Credit where it's due - we do seem to have decided to purchase a few million doses of a vaccine from anyone who claims to have one. there might be a lot of wasted money in the end but I guess we can then "donate" leftover vaccine to countries not so predatory wealthy

sharkbait - the UK has the highest death rate in the world and as DrPs post makes clear vaccines delivered is not the same as vaccines given - and even then we are not top in the world. Not even close.

Is this still available?

Wrong forum, Mods please move to classifieds 😉

Who is distributing the vaccines DrP?

there’s a group of GPs and practice managers locally who are REALLY doing us all proud!

I speak to a lot of people in the area, all ages, care workers, all sorts.  I’ve been hearing nothing but praise about the way this is being rolled out.  It cheers me up every time I hear about it

Will you swap a dose for an X Box?

We are quite close TJ

Second behind US in absolute numbers but ahead of them per head of population.

4th Behind Israel, UAE and Bahrain on a per head basis.

Any idea how they’re delivered Dr P – is each vial of vaccine packed with the diluent or do you get a box of vaccine and a box of diluent?

Each box has (IIRC) 75 vials.. each vial does 5 or 6 doses of vaccine.
You have to then add 1.8ml of saline to each vial.. rock it like a baby.. then draw up 5 or 6 doses from each vial.
Once drawn, you've a few hours to give.

DrP

Politics aside, assuming we have vaccines in large enough quantities, it was always going to be a logistical nightmare to get them into peoples arms before they expire.

I belive anyone in posession would be keen to use them up as fast as possible, but as said, especially in the case of a GP surgery, they have thier 'normal day to day' care to deliver as well, and they have to do this on top.

I do wonder if like the mobile/temp testing places, that would be a good vehicle to deliver any surplus, but i'd assume there are lots of regulations etc. to consider.

ANother consideration is do you get a formal certificate/confirmation of some kind that you are vacinated?

Am waiting for a call from my GP- not to get vaccinated, but instead to act as a spare 'on demand' vaccinator when supplies arrive and the practice is needing flexibility over delivering it into peoples' arms. Same with the local health board team, am on call there too. Much lower personal risk than the patient transfer work I was engaged in last year.

Mere days before the vaccine rollout was actually started we were speculating whether the Army were going to do it, Hospitals? GP surgeries? G4S and Serco? Who the **** knows. It would have taken a great lot of foresight for a GP practice manager to start devoting their time to a generating a plan when the government doesn’t seem to have one.

Absolutely.

strobes@private-eye.co.uk

Just saying...

donald
Free Member
We are quite close TJ

Second behind US in absolute numbers but ahead of them per head of population.

4th Behind Israel, UAE and Bahrain on a per head basis.

which given that UAE, ISrael and Bharain have their beady eyes on everyone all of the time and realtively small countries, IMHO says we are doing better. The US just has oodles of resources..

well done NHS front line teams - not so much Gov back office..

vaccines delivered is not the same as vaccines given

I meant "in arms"..... and 4th in the world is pretty good.

this is a huge programme and not to be underestimated. I know a few people who are involved in the commercial, supply chain and logistical side of it snd they are working their backsides off and feel the weight of hope and expectation from the public all too well. This wont go 100% smoothly...that's a guarantee. It's unprecedented in its scale and complexity. A programme a fraction of the size od this one under normal circumstances would be in the planning for years, so if we're going to jump on ever error made then we're in for a long and bumpy ride. Best to let those involved crack on and give them the space they need to deliver without laying on additional and unrealistic expectations. They're all working every hour, under immense pressure and are as desperate as the rest of us to see the back of COVID and crack on with our lives.

It's one of the biggest logistical projects in world history tbh, a perfect storm of speed and longterm, demand exceeding supply and constant efforts to push that supply to the max, tight time constraints, politics, etc- it's going to go wrong, a lot. It's OK- obviously waste should be kept to a minimum but if the system was built around perfection, zero or tiny wastage, never overpromising and never overdelivering it'd basically just mean slowing it down. There's a point where the big efficiencies crush the little ones.

I have no idea exactly where that point actually is, to be fair, but it's bound to involve situations like this.

I think the supposedly Luddite, lazy, inefficient NHS are doing really quite well indeed - again.

Now the awful hand the incompetents of the Tory government dealt them? That’s another story. Couldn’t manage a lockdown in a Yale factory that BoJo.

However glad to see a British institution nationalised in the various nations showing the private enterprise enthusiasts how its done.

Well done NHS, be you physicians, nurses cleaners, porters, or administrators. Even the logistics guys are doing pretty darn well in the circumstances. As Wobliscott says you ain’t got a hope of it going perfectly vaccination-wise - but it is going pretty well.

Just spent my lunch hour helping Mrs. Jay complete her E-Learning Fire Marshall cert so she can volunteer to vaccinate at the weekends. She's qualified to give vaccinations, has been giving the Flu jab for years, all her anaphylaxis training etc is up to date etc.

But no, you can't give jabs until you can tell us which Fire Extinguisher you use on Electrical fires, and then spend two days being assessed... again.

I’ve PayPal gifted £5k to DrP but not heard back.  Does anyone here know him?

Don't know, but he's just bought my carbon XC bike off the Classifieds. Didn't even haggle.

Knock this up the command chain at DHSC DrJ - there are sympathetic ears but it is madness.

Quick, down to Tesco at weekend and stab everyone who goes through the door. No stab, no shop !

Whereas, where I work, we got an email on Wednesday saying that they weren’t sending any Pfizer vaccine for next week after all, so all the clinics (covering 240000 population) that were booked next week have had to be cancelled... so DrP has been sent some of our vaccine...
However I’ve been vaccinating this morning and they have been adding slots to this afternoon’s list to try and get more people in today. I jabbed a guy who called in to collect his repeat prescription and was sent down the corridor to get his jab.
Not sure what the expiry is on the the batch I was using up today but it appeared to be a nearly full box at 9 am so am guessing we’ve got all weekend to use it up. 195 vials in a box and 6 doses per vial. We were told today only to give to carers if they are over 70 so I presume that means not panicking too much about having lots left over.

We’ve had to be very flexible that’s for sure.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the country!;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-55755529

Well that makes sense... I’m in Yorkshire. We’ve done 6% of the total population. Not sure what percentage of over 80s, but we were told on Wednesday if we’d done more than 60% we’d be asked to concentrate on housebound rather than sending people to vaccination centres.

My only experience so far is with the “NHS professionals “ recruitment process and the outsourced background checks.
It’s taken a month so far and I’ve no idea when my F2F training will be to allow me to start. All online modules done 15 days ago. Nothing happens in parallel and every task required adds another delay before progression.
It’s painful, but hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be online, releasing a HCP back to the front line.

I’ve PayPal gifted £5k to DrP but not heard back. Does anyone here know him?

You knew the risks.....

Dr erm.. T?

It can get worse - the NE of England having supplies halved next week as a reward for achieving such high vaccination rates. If those 'diverted' vaccines now start showing up as bonus boxes which risk being spoiled - that would be lunacy.

I heard I’m did 400000 jabs today. If that’s true (and it probably isn’t) it’s damn good going

Meanwhile at my local surgery they’ve had less than 100 doses. Thats a surgery that covers almost 20000 folks.

It is fair to say it is lumpy everywhere though. In my part of London, our local GP practice, whose administration is pretty challenging, is leading for our area and they have been knocking it out of the park. Have been onto 70 year olds for a couple of weeks so a long way ahead of schedule yet London lags the rest of England.

Not wanting to downplay the stress and issues it creates at the front line, but if things weren't at least a bit chaotic I'd be concerned that it might be possible to go faster.

I've been impressed by how quickly my older relatives have been getting called up, and also the efforts made by GPs to avoid wastage of surplus - I know two healthcare workers who have received the vaccine this way.

While things like that mentioned in the OP are no doubt frustrating, it's quite likely the folk doing the admin and logistics are also working round the clock trying to carry out a huge rollout program in a very short period of time.

Mistakes will be made, pretty much inevitable given the scale and timescales involved.

Have been onto 70 year olds for a couple of weeks so a long way ahead of schedule

That's good.... Although it may be that they have a different demographic or all their >80s are in hospital 😟

Dad, a very healthy 70yrs and 6 weeks was told today he's being jabbed tomorrow in York.
Missed messages as to whether it's 3 or 12 weeks to his second. Throttling back Yorkshire cos they've been doing a good job is ridiculous, when they could crack on and get peoples 2nd doses done quick.

I won't say what my friend, who's senior in Bristol's roll out, has told me. But every week I'm surprised at how the tories can go even lower in my estimations.

The ****s.

The idea is to do all the older age groups and them move down. This means if some areas are behind (for whatever reason, the focus will move to the areas are behind. It is not throttling it is focusing the resources on the target groups. No one in the regions appears to be complaining that London is behind the curve and that there are many Over 80's there who should be done before the Over 70's in 'their' region. We are all in this together.

(By all means have a gone at the Tories for their failure to reduce the impact of the pandemic, but at least they listened to the experts and were first in the queue to get the vacancies. In practical terms the politicians have **** all to do with the rollout of the the vaccinations - be thankful for that.)

so mrs b has her interview to become a NHS jabber, she has worked within NHS for 30+ yrs she was a registered nurse and is now a registered midwife for 28yrs.

She has to do a "teams" interview on Tuesday and has to provide proof of her eligibility to work within the UK ie Passport and an up-to-date utility bill.

Madness

Wow, what a complete ****ing mess. My dad is 91, lives in North Devon and had his vaccination booked for Monday 25th.
He received a phone call this morning to say it has been cancelled due to the fact they don't have enough vaccines.

Who is in charge of this shit show?

Who is in charge of this shit show?

Ultimately Matt Hancock

Just second dose everyone on their first visit over the next 72hrs.

Can't be done as Dr P (or is it T now?) would be removed from the vaccination panel. Word from on high is 12 weeks only or lose your authorisation.

jim25 I can tell you that wasn’t due to human error and it’s definitely not a ‘shit show’. Devon is ahead of trajectory on the vaccination programme, they are doing an amazing job at the peak of the third wave with hospitals rammed and taking patients from other parts of the country to help out. NHS clinicians and managers are working their arses off here and across the country to get this done on top of what is always the busiest time of year. This weekend the vaccination teams will be all out finishing off giving the jab to everyone in care homes. Your dad will have his jab delayed a few days, some countries have barely got their vaccination programme off the ground. Give them a break.

Madness

Are midwives qualified for giving vaccines?
Maybe not, so she has to go through the training to be up to date the same as everyone else taking part.

Edit: seems like they can, so training is probably minimal.

Right which one of you leaked to the press,  https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-vaccine-over-my-dead-body-are-we-wasting-a-drop-of-this-gqrn5qc80?shareToken=38953c5fb788bd01878632004360bc88
The way the article is written it sounds like it was last week so guess it was the same delivery driver that’s done the same thing again.

Huge thanks her to EVERYONE involved in this massive effort.

Its hugely humbling.

Anyone that bad mouthes the NHS in front of me can expect to receive a mostly polite response pointing out the error of their ways.

Sod the queen.

Good bless the NHS.💜

Edit: seems like they can, so training is probably minimal.

She can jab 💉

She has to do the vaccine related stuff online, fair enough.

It's the proof of eligibility to work when she has been working for NHS for 30+ yrs. She has to put down her current employer and give 2 references, if you currently work for NHS please state which dept/role etc. Surely a simple HR check could eliminate much of this unnecessary bureaucracy. Buts its the NHS pen pusher way I suppose

Are midwives qualified for giving vaccines?

They're the ones that give the post birth jab if your offspring is a different blood type. Probably a product knowledge brush up required.

Bruneep

I can fully empathise with your Wife and I had the added "bonus" of not currently working (former Rapid Response Paramedic) and have moved from Scotland to England recently, so no proof of current address.

I was contacted weeks ago by NHSP who had already done all the checks and approved me last June for T&T and I had also completed all the basic statutory training. Guess what, that doesn't count as they won't use the previous info and are also taking up references AGAIN! The vax specific training modules are a nightmare as I'm using my phone while waiting for broadband!

I am at the point of telling them to stuff it, particularly when you read of people already giving jabs with absolutely no previous experience.

bruneep - part at least of that is due to tory xenophobia again. IIRC ! There was a requirement made that employers must check employment status everytime a new role is offered

Edit: seems like they can, so training is probably minimal

I'm half way through my vaccinators face to face training day and there are St John Ambulance members in my room doing exactly the same training so..... 🤷🏻‍♂️