d) check it, find it’s genuine, accept it

wrote some stuff, with hindsight it’ll be used for more blather.

I’m taking my own advice from earlier.

Histrionics.
Melodrama.
Paranoia.

And it’s not the first time.

Steve, get some help – and not off some randoms on a cycling forum.

You think some random person in a GP practice is just handing over flu vaccine patient data via a politically chosen IT company who’re then sending texts to patients? Have I got that right, that’s what you think is going on?

Yes, that is succinctly put from reading what has been written on here. (though perhaps random person isn’t accurate but overall yes)

One minute you say I’m invited because “everyone is” then next “The COVID priority searches are mostly age based apart from group 6 which were predominately (but not entirely) the same group that we invite for a flu jab each year”

TBF to most GPs, the vaccine invites timings are largely out their individual control, so she might have a look at this, but not realized you’d already been invited for a vaccine. After all, GP workloads are pretty heavy right now.

Which I totally understand … our GP’s are screwed year round due to the patient ratio and demographics.

To answer Jonv on the way

OK if they’re writing the letter to say that I’m invited for a vaccination, or a wellman check, or whatever – I trust and assume they are doing it with the knowledge of the GP’s / partners / Management team of the practise rather than freeforming it.

All my letters I can remember from NHS doctors and consultants have very clearly indicated if its written by, dictated by etc. or from admin staff.

I am simply saying sending by text should be different.

Remove the SMS complication … if I got a letter from the Admin staff it would clearly say so… I spent ages trying to get results from a consultant to my GP and his admin staff (correctly IMHO) refused to send them UNTIL he had checked them.

This doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

You think some random person in a GP practice is just handing over flu vaccine patient data via a politically chosen IT company who’re then sending texts to patients?

Hence why I’d want to know who is making these decisions and what qualifications they have to make them.
Given the debacle with personal data and track and trace and the choice of person (political appointee) making those decisions

Appointed interim chair of the UK government’s National Institute for Health Protection at its inception in August, the Conservative peer Dido Harding has been handed one of the most high profile—and highly scrutinised—jobs in England.

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3332

The stakes are high: the new agency has been tasked with overseeing England’s covid-19 response, after the government’s controversial decision to disband Public Health England and merge its health protection functions with the Joint Biosecurity Centre and the NHS Test and Trace service, which Harding has led since it launched in May.

(bold mine)

As I said a few times… the poster child in the UK for losing personal data and not giving a toss.. her only credentials are never having voted against the Tory line and being married to someone that openly wants to disband the NHS.

Before test and trace she was the example used for how not to treat personal data yet put in charge of track and trace to make decisions. Pretty much akin in putting Cummings in charge of DVLA eye testing.

If she was the one making these decisions (with-holding numbers, don’t call your GP) I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t be worried.
Her statements from Talk Talk times are taken as the defacto way not to deal with personal data. Picked out by the Information commissioner etc. If there was something like bankruptcy law applied to people allowed to hold positions handling personal data… she’d be banned for life. (As Elizabeth Denham the information commissioner made clear)

So when it seems the process is “someone made the decision” and “we only had one system” I’d find that disturbing when the interim chair of the National Institute for Health Protection and tasked with overseeing England’s covid-19 response was this same person at this time.

I’d worry that the same logic as awarding Dyson a contract for ventilators whilst not using any biotech companies prevails and these decisions are more about breaking up the NHS and removing the limited autonomy of GP’s

Because it uses AccuRX, and that withholds numbers, I think it was a national decision, to stop folk automatically phoning their GP as soon as they got a text. so as not to overwhelm GP surgeries.

So I find it disturbing that all of a sudden the NHS has only a single authorised supplier for a SMS gateway.. like no-one thought of this until we had a vaccine ready to deliver? As was said earlier it could be incompetence but it would need to be of stellar proportions. Like appointing the UK’s worst person for keeping personal data safe to handle track and trace.

Given the history of the UK Covid response it beggars belief this can be pure incompetence then hey ho a single company waiting in the wings already on the NHS procurement … “decisions made at executive levels” etc.

d) check it, find it’s genuine, accept it

but

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/reporting-fraudulent-emails

HMRC never send notifications of a tax rebate or ask you to disclose personal or payment information by text message.

Which bit of “check it and find it’s genuine” did you not follow before throwing up the HMRC thing?

Which bit of “check it and find it’s genuine” did you not follow before throwing up the HMRC thing?

The bit when you get the text and instead of pressing the link to some scam you instead go and check the HMRC site that tells you categorically they don’t.

I’m here being called paranoid and schizophrenic for doing what I have been trained to do for the last 10 years, the last 6 of which working for one of the largest global IT companies in the world (the 4 before that with a smaller (250,000 employee) company) where we were constantly tested with fake emails and texts to our company phones/email.

“Your phone is due for renewal..click here” .. you are sent official looking mail and texts once or twice a month and formally tested and certified yearly. We were taught you NEVER EVER assume who sent a email or text based on who it says as by default any email from an unknown account or text from an unknown number or worse withheld is assumed to be a scam.

You might think this is paranoid, obviously 2 huge IT multinationals don’t it is what they are teaching 1/2 million staff…

My experience is in my personal phone/email I have managed not to succumb to any of the many scams including ones pretending to be from HMRC, DVLA and my own bank.

On one my banks security officers after I reported and documented it confided he might have been caught out himself but my paranoid behaviour saved me.

So the HMRC you went and checked and verified and they said they never send those messages. So you reject it as a scam. Correct.

But a quick google on ‘accurx covid vaccine scam’ throws up dozens of responses including some about the actual vaccine scam (misspellings, asking for card details to verify identity) and many more from Gov.uk, nhs.uk and multiple local surgeries all saying that accurx is genuine.

And yes, also the accurx site…..

Like I said before – check, verify and proceed. Your diligence is good, but you’re going beyond that. IMHO

Anyway, enough, I’m out as I feel we’re going in circles.

But a quick google on ‘accurx covid vaccine scam’ throws up dozens of responses including some about the actual vaccine scam (misspellings, asking for card details to verify identity) and many more from Gov.uk, nhs.uk and multiple local surgeries all saying that accurx is genuine.

And yes, also the accurx site…..

Like I said before – check, verify and proceed. Your diligence is good, but you’re going beyond that. IMHO

Which was exactly where I was back in Feb … I assumed the text was genuine and from my GP’s surgery.
Some slightly concerning lack of details and knowledge by the team in the vaccination site… and hey ho.

There I was until the other day a mate asks me if I had the second jab yet…
Um … nope forgot about it.. I guess they’ll contact me.
Then he says how he went back to the NHS site and got a earlier second booking… so why not try.

So I think, hey why not I’ll try and meantime OH has booked on NHS site and. Texts me to say its yesterday in Fleet and a second date for the 2nd jab…

I say cool.. well done and give her directions. (given she is teaching staff seems a good thing to get as early as possible and I go to Fleet quite often and I know she’ll panic at a particular junction-about you might know the one I mean over/across the M3) then 1/2 hour later she texts me back… she’s just had a text from “GPsurgery” inviting her to book a vaccine and is confused as she thought she just did. My mate say’s “I didn’t get a text, i just went to the NHS site” … so at this point I’m confused.(more accurately realised I was confused). how can you have 2 completely separate systems?
Given I’m looking after my mum it would be kinda good if I could do what my mate suggests and book a spare slot on the NHS web site but then I wonder how will they know what the GP had decided and why.

All along I’d assumed my GP had actually done what she said she would and that is why I got the invite…

Then I get told … on here

You didn’t get an invite in Feb unless your over 65 (well I know I did but hey I’m 52 and my memory isn’t what is was so I check on my phone)
Yep… turns out my memory isn’t that bad.. and it was Feb

Then I get told lots of reasons I was “invited” … whilst simultaneously being told I wasn’t or “because everyone is being invited”. Umm my mate says not, he says he went to the NHS site and booked… is he lying? If EVERYONE is being invited then why have the NHS site… ???

All I want to know at this point is did my GP actually send the text as she’d said she would.. then I’m told its a group of admin people using markers in the records… then I’m told no its not .. then I’m told god knows what…

I have the freakin texts on my phone and people are telling me I didn’t get them?
I’m told they are from the GP, not from the GP … that someone nameless took a national decision to with-hold numbers and say “Do not contact your surgery”…

OH is texting me asking if she does this one from the GP what happens to the one she did.. will it know?

Take a look at page 1 before people accused me of being paranoid and telling me you didn’t get a text etc….

As far as I know there are two routes; wait for your GP to contact you (by letter, SMS or phone call) or book via NHS website. The NHS website does some verification of who you are, either by your NHS patient number (I didn’t know mine) or by registered name, DOB and postcode you’re registered at with your GP.

Personally I could of waited for my GP to get in touch but my practice is frankly shite at everything they do, so when the age of eligibility dropped to 45 last week I was in quick and got an appointment booked for 72 hours later. Nice and simple.

I’m guessing that I’ll have now been removed from my GP list as they should know I’ve gone via the national booking system. And same for second jab as national system books both of them for you at the same time.

From my experience the process was about as complex as booking a hair cut and start to finish at the vaccination site, took about the same time. Superbly organised given the pace and scale at which it has had to be delivered.

I’m guessing that I’ll have now been removed from my GP list as they should know I’ve gone via the national booking system. And same for second jab as national system books both of them for you at the same time.

That was also something I was trying to ascertain but forgot.
Having done the GPO list thing (whatever that actually is) if I did go the route of trying to get my 2nd jab off the NHS site (which I have more confidence in as it appears my GP wasn’t involved) will they know my first jab and medical details if I go the NHS route.

I don’t think the systems are particularly well integrated. I got a text invite from my GP approximately five days after I booked on the national online system. It wasn’t a big deal, I just ignored the local invite and went ahead with the booking I’d already made. Or, based on the flu jab texts I received after I’d been vaccinated at Boots weeks before, they simply don’t bother to sort properly at local – my local – level. It may be different where you are.

I’m not sure you’ll be able to book just the second jab online via the website which is set up to book both the first and second jabs in a single session, but you can – I think – also book using the phone by calling 119, in which case you can presumably explain what you’re trying to do.

will they know my first jab and medical details if I go the NHS route.

Yes. (Well, maybe). Mrs Dubs got her first vaccine from a centre that we’re giving out “extras” to key workers (uptake in Hounslow borough is not great).

She booked second jab via NHS site and it gave her a date 12 weeks after her first one.

The system isn’t perfect, which isn’t surprising when you are trying to vaccinate 50 million people.

I waited patiently to ‘get the call’ once I turned 50 but as far as the NHS was concerned I was still 49, my surgery (a vaccine hub) couldn’t offer any help or advice.
I finally had my jab days after the fanfare announcement of all over 50’s being offered a jab which was obviously a PR lie.
Had to go to a special walk-in for groups 1-9 at St Thomas’s hospital which I only found out about by chance.
I also only found out by logging in to the NHS that my second appointment had been cancelled!? So I rebooked at a pharmacy down the road. No text or letter telling me to rebook.

I got a letter today offering me a covid vaccination.

Still no text from my surgery.

There’s loads of people with a similar experience.

Clinic = disused office building

Clinic is the function it serves not the architects vision.

Yes they asked so I asked if they meant IgE mediated only to which the nice bloke who’d taken an interest in my cycling t-shirt said he didn’t know what immunoglobulin was.

What was the point on discussing the IgE mediated unless either (a) you were genuinely concerned or (b) you were trying to prove your intellect to the guy admiring your t-shirt? There is a healthcare professional overseeing every vaccination centre – did you not think to ask to discuss with them given the “receptionist” did not know enough to answer your question?

I told him about the anti-biotic and said it would be best to check it on my medical records then he told me he didn’t have access to them.

Frankly I’d be greatly reassured that any random person in a vaccine clinic doesn’t have access to my medical records. In fact, frankly, I’d be absolutely staggered if they did have access to them given (a) the state of the NHS IT infrastructure (b) that vaccine centres/clinics were pulled together at record speed and GP<–>Hospital sharing seems to mostly still be on paper or email rather than a central system.

I started to wonder how I’d got this invite and why? I knew I wasn’t in the age range being vaccinated so it must be another reason so I asked and got told they didn’t have access to that information either.

But you do suffer from a significant immune condition? It surely wasn’t a surprise that you were in one of the “earlier” vaccination groups than your age?

I’d been given the literature 15 mins ? earlier … the GP is closed (8pm) so I can’t even try and find out and I’m told “its up to you if you have it or not”

And yet you proceeded, had no major ill effects and are here weeks later saying the system is broken… …meanwhile everyone else in the country is admiring the efficacy of rolling out the programme and mostly getting the vaccines/invites to the right people. So it could be you are the only one who sees the real problem – or it could be you have an inability to admit you might be wrong/over reacting.

She booked the emergency examination/biopsy as a precaution due to possible (Covid) delays then after the email for the negative stool she texted me at 10pm at night to urge me to get an appointment ASAP.

So perhaps you can see why I’d take a “text from my GP” as being “a text from my GP”.

You think your GP was tapping out personal text messages to patients at 10pm at night?

I don’t know how people manage to live their lives when they make small things so unbelievably complex for themselves.

Get text. But unsure if genuine.
Ring docs – “have you just texted me about the vaccine?”
“Yes we have”
“Thanks”
Book vaccine appointment via link in text.

Add in this subroutine if needed:
“I Have XXXX wrong with me, should I still get the vaccine?”
“Don’t know, I’ll book an appointment with the doc for you so you can discuss it”
“Thanks”
Have appointment. Make decision.

I don’t know how people manage to live their lives when they make small things so unbelievably complex for themselves.

It can be difficult. I basically had to give up a job I otherwise enjoyed and my everyday life is also  impacted by anxiety.

What was the point on discussing the IgE mediated

Um, because I have had adverse IgA and IgG reactions to excipients used in pharmaceuticals.
Because this adverse reaction sends my immune system into a state non conducive to then picking up a pathogen

did you not think to ask to discuss with them given the “receptionist” did not know enough to answer your question?

Perhaps it would have helped if the “receptionist” was presented as a “receptionist” and someone had informed me that a person with basic knowledge of biology was present…

you were trying to prove your intellect to the guy admiring your t-shirt?

I was told to wait then I’d see a person who would check everything was OK to go ahead (or something).. what I didn’t expect was someone lacking the most basic knowledge of biology (as in less than mine)

And yet you proceeded, had no major ill effects and are here weeks later saying the system is broken

That is a logical fallacy.
Its like saying that since the traffic lights have failed but you managed to get through without incident nothing is wrong.

My GP who knows my medical history was concerned and wanted to look into this and consult my RI last time I saw her.

What I expected was for her not to be bypassed by some “receptionist”/ admin person and that person be unable to tell me if my GP had recommended this specific vaccine or not.

Frankly I’d be greatly reassured that any random person in a vaccine clinic doesn’t have access to my medical records.

This is the same point as above … I expect my GP or RI who have knowledge of my medical history be be deciding and advising me not someone without even the most basic knowledge of the human immune system.

meanwhile everyone else in the country is admiring the efficacy of rolling out the programme and mostly getting the vaccines/invites to the right people. So it could be you are the only one who sees the real problem – or it could be you have an inability to admit you might be wrong/over reacting.

Except it’s not EVERYBODY.. just like last year many people were admiring the efficiency of discharging pensioners with Covid to nursing homes without even basic PPE and the efficiency of not reporting pensioners deaths in care homes in Pillar 1 masking the deaths.

I don’t think the systems are particularly well integrated.

i got a call from my GP on Saturday, booked in and jabbed on Monday. Tuesday morning got a text from my GP inviting me to book my first jab.

Our next door neighbours daughter (19) was given the vaccine and asked a minute afterwards if she was allergic to anything. She is (penicillin), ended up unable to breathe and in A&E for the night…

And yet you proceeded, had no major ill effects and are here weeks later saying the system is broken… …meanwhile everyone else in the country is admiring the efficacy of rolling out the programme and mostly getting the vaccines/invites to the right people. So it could be you are the only one who sees the real problem – or it could be you have an inability to admit you might be wrong/over reacting.

I’ve deleted the text message I had last week inviting me to go for my second jab on Saturday, with a choice of three different times, to check it’s veracity, but I responded, turned up early, was shown straight in, asked for my date of birth and name, and for my vaccination card, had the jab, and left.
The only thing they didn’t ask was which arm I preferred, but they did ask if I’d shown any reactions to the first one, which I hadn’t, in fact I get stronger reactions to the flu vaccination and I’ve had absolutely no reactions to the second AZ vaccine at all, not even a slight ache.

As an aside, please can I say a huge thank you to everyone who’s said such nice things about me, I’m touched and a little emotional, I’m honestly not used to having anyone say anything like that, and it means more than I can properly express.
It was Joey’s funeral yesterday, which as you all might imagine was very hard to deal with, and it’s going to be an ongoing struggle, but with the lovely people here, and amazing people who I work with, it’s helping me get through it.